Lost: Our intelligence? Why?

T HE Greeks had a word for it, but the Romans had a word with better survival properties. Regardless of the word, what is now called intelligence has been talked about for at least 2,000 years. And as long as 2,000 years before the advent of attempts to measure intelligence, there seems to have been recognition of the fact that individuals differ in intellectual ability. The earlier attempts at measuring were based on either of two quite distinct conceptions: the GaltonCattell idea that intellectual ability manifests itself in simple, discrimination functioning, and the Binet notion that cognitive ability reflects itself in more complex functioning. The Binet concept proved to be more fruitful, and by 1925 there was on the market, in addition to various versions of the Binet scale, a flood of group tests of so-called general intelligence. A few words about definition may be in order. First, it might be claimed that no definition is required because all intelligent people know what intelligence is—it is the thing that the other guy lacks. Second, the fact that tests of general intelligence based on differing definitions tend to intercorrelate about as highly as their respective reliabilities permit indicates that, despite the diversity of definitions, the same function or process is being measured—definitions can be more confusing than enlightening. Third, that confusion might have been anticipated is evident from a recent reexamination of the problem of definition by Miles (19S7). This British chappie found himself struggling with the awful fact that the word "definition" itself has 12 definitions. Perhaps the resolution of this problem should be assigned to the newly formed Division of Philosophical Psychology, or maybe the,problem should be forgotten since psychologists seem to have lost the concept of general intelligence. Why has the concept been abandoned? Was it replaced by something else? By something better?