Summary and Conclusions

THE view of Ability that has been suggested may be summarized in relation to the version of the Parable of the Talents in which one man received five talents, another two talents, and the third one talent. The number of talents which each man is originally given, corresponds on our theory to his degree of intelligence, i.e. the degree to which his experiences are confluent. As in the parable, so in the case of mental gifts, all are not equally endowed. The original endowment may be used in a number of ways. However it is used, it will lead to the development of special abilities. The drive to use it in one way or another comes from the person's emotional and instinctive nature in relation to the exigencies of the environment. The man who hid his talent in the earth suffered from fear and resentment, Dr. Burt's depressing emotions. ¹ In some cases he suffers from a lack of any attractive venture in which to invest it, in others, from a mere lack of the invigorating emotions. The man who has many talents (i.e. good general capacity) seems almost sure to invest them, even if nothing better presents itself than the mere manipulation of numbers. While the facts seem to show that a man with good general capacity may, in unfavourable circumstances, develop only one narrow line of interest, the chances are in favour of his interests being broad. For the high degree of confluence not only leads to an efficient focusing of the whole of experience upon the given problem, but also, in that very focusing, the relation of the problem of the moment to quite different aspects of experience is given, whereby those aspects may in turn become objects of interest. The case of Helmholtz, quoted on p. 68 above, is a good illustration of this.