Introduction

Abstract

The concept of ‘intelligence’ has been with us for a long time. Some two thousand years ago, Plato and Aristotle singled out cognitive from orectic factors in behaviour, and Cicero coined the term ‘intelligentia’ which has since assumed such universal acceptance. It is only in recent years, of course, that psychologists have attempted to define the concept more closely, to carry out experiments, and to try and measure it. The result has been rather curious. On the one hand we have the overwhelmingly successful application of measures of IQ in education, industrial selection, vocational guidance, officer selection, and many other areas. On the other we have large-scale criticism of concept and measurement alike, including firm denials that intelligence ‘exists’ at all, or can conceivably be measured. Many of the evils that beset our society, like intellectual differences between races or social classes, are laid at the door of the psychologist, who measures (but can hardly be accused of causing!) these differences. Thus the very success of intelligence testing seems to have caused the storm of criticism that is at present all but submerging it.