CONSIDER THE ELEPHANT

The flood of intelligence tests, which has poured out since the psychological tests in the army, has enabled examiners to reach any decision they wished, extremely positive or extremely negative. The most amusing results have been reached and varying doctrines have been propounded. But according to Professor Langfeld some measurement of intelligence is reaily important, and certainly most alluring. Even our keenest psychologists, equipped with all modern conveniences, have failed to devise a universal test, and the older philosophers went hopelessly astray.

To all, the very meaning of intelligence is clouded. It is defined as the "faculty of understanding", and includes fundamentally the power of reasoning. Used in this sense, it has nothing to do with knowledge or information. The women students who recently proved that their professors knew less of current events than themselves did not establish a vindication of their own mentality--unless intelligence necessarily implies understanding of current events. So discovering where intelligence stops and knowledge begins is a hair-splitting business.

Just as perplexing is the relation of the human brain to understanding. The ancients thought head measurement indicated intellectual capacity. Later observers remarked that the size of the brain had little to do with the volume of the skull, but still the mass of the convolutions was regarded as somehow significant of ability. But the brains of the greatest weight have belonged indiscriminately to scientists and suicides, mad men and bricklayers. And men of superlative genius have done their work with a modicum of tissue that any self-respecting lunatic would disown.

Still clinging tenaciously, in our material way to ideas of bulk, we may smile knowingly and say, "Ah, it is a question of relativity. The whale has the largest brain, but his body is much larger, in comparison with the dog, the monkey or man. Arrange everything according to the ratio of brain to body, and you have the order of intelligence." Babies, then would outrank us all, confirming Charles Kingsley. And the elephant, who is declared to be one of the craftiest of beasts, would come out nowhere.