ABSTRACT
INTELLIGENCE has been variously defined by many psychologists and by most considered as a distinct native endowment. But McDougall, in The Energies of Men, points out that since in men, as in animals, those seem to be most intelligent who are endowed with the most varied native abilities, intelligence should not be looked on as a new factor independent of sense endowment and native propensities, but as the working of the more varied and richer endowments. 'The richer and more varied the native abilities through which the native propensities express themselves, the more readily does the creature extend the range and variety of those abilities, building up in his instinctive strivings abilities that are virtually novel.' The italics are mine, because it seems to me that in this statement lies the key to the situation for the teacher. It may or not be correct to call intelligence a native endowment independent of other native propensities, but it is correct to say that whatever its origin it does modify enormously the experience acquired through the senses and the working of native propensities of all types. Hence the value of such a description of intelligence as 'the capacity to make use of capacity' or 'the capacity to use experience'.
