Page:Scientific Monthly, volume 14.djvu/45

 only the language was sufficiently smooth-flowing. The absurdity about the road which was down hill in both directions involves little more than the re-presentation of sensed experience, hence was well within K's ability. That about the three brothers demands an appreciation of language relationships which proved to be beyond him.

In "Combinative ability" of the kind which Ebbinghaus rightly regarded as such an important aspect of intelligence, K reveals, notwithstanding fourteen years of schooling, the capacities of an average child of twelve years. His desert-rivers-lakes sentence is correct in form, but absurdly foolish. In the Trabue test we find habitual associations dominant over sense, as in "The stars and stripes will shine to-night"; also a weak appreciation of sequential relationships and language form, as in "She could if she will," "The boy who studied hard will succeed." etc. The meaning of a simple mixed sentence like "people are many candy of fond" is not grasped by K because he is unable to profit from logical cues. He sometimes reacts to pictures by descriptions rather than interpretations because he sees merely parts without grasping the whole they compose. Subtle meanings, whether of language or pictorial representation, are lost on him. The gulf that separates him from Millet is as enormous as that which separates him from Shakespeare. In no intellectual activity that involves the "elaboration of parts into their worth and meaning" (Ebbinghaus) could he possibly excel. "Two and two" as numbers he can put together by the simple laws of habit: "two and two" as parts of a more complex situation will not combine.

In comprehension K fails equally with simple cause and effect relationships in nature, human relationships, and the rationalization of custom. Why the deaf should also be dumb is as much a mystery to him as why the rainbow is many-colored. New York is the largest city "because it covers such a large area." Why honesty is the best policy, why women and children should be saved first in a shipwreck, why marriage licenses are necessary, involve issues too subtle for him to grasp. Although his inferior powers of comprehension render him incapable of real morality, his moral life, measured by the ordinary standards, appears to be quite normal. He is honest, and considerate and not likely to commit bigamy or marry without license. He follows custom but can not see beneath it or behind it. He is about as likely to be a moral reformer as to be a philosopher or poet or inventor or scientist.

Closely associated with this weakness of comprehension is his inability to interpret fables, which usually bring either a comment in terms of the concrete situation or else a generalization which is beside the point. He grasps crudely the general trend of the story, but is insensible to the thought fringes which give it meaning. He is able to imagine the objects and activities described, but taken in the rough such imagery gets him nowhere. It is no wonder, therefore, that he should