needed; and such a criterion is not easy to formulate or to apply.
If we institute inquiries with a view to ascertaining how the conceptual factor originates, it appears to be the result of analysis and abstraction, and to be reached by a process of comparison which becomes intentional and deliberate. If, for example, in educational Development of concept. procedure, we seek to assist children in forming concepts of colour, shape and material, we place before them a number of objects, some round, some square, some triangular; some red, some yellow, some blue; some made of paper, some of wood, some of flannel. Any given object is both red and square and made of flannel, blue and round and made of wood, and so on. We teach the child to group the objects, to put all the blues, yellows and reds together irrespective of shape or material; then all the rounds, squares and triangles together; then all which are made of like material. We thus help the children to grasp that though shape, colour and material are combined in each object, yet for the immediate purpose in hand one matters and the others do not matter. That which does matter is abstracted from the rest. The child has to analyse his experience and fix his attention on some given factor therein. He has to compare the objects intentionally, that is, for a definite end. He reaches, for example, the concept “blue” and realizes that the word may be applied to a number of particular objects differing in other respects, and that each is an example of what he understands by the word blue. Whether he could reach the concept without words is a question on which opinions differ.
Locke held that animals are incapable of the abstraction which is implied in such procedure. Dr Stout considers that observation of their behaviour shows little if any evidence of intentional comparison. And it is open to discussion whether they are able to analyse the Are animals conceptually intelligent? situations opened up by their perceptual behaviour. The matter cannot be fully considered here. It must suffice if enough has been said to show the nature of the distinction between perceptual and conceptual process.
An example may, however, be given of the kind of observation which, since it was carefully planned and carried out, is of evidential value. Dr Alexander Hill’s fox terrier was “taught” to open the side door of a large box by lifting a projecting latch. When the door swung open he was never allowed to find anything in the box, but was given a piece of biscuit from the hand. Then a warm chop-bone was put inside the box, which was placed in a courtyard so that the dog would pass it when no one was near, though he could be watched from the window. Details of the terrier’s behaviour are given by Dr Hill in Nature (lxvii. 558, April 1903). The net result was that the dog failed to apply at once his quite familiar experience of lifting the latch in the usual way. Here two situations were presented; first the box with people around and a piece of biscuit to be obtained from one of them by lifting the latch; secondly the box with no one near and a redolent chop-bone inside. To us it is obvious enough that the lifted latch is the key to the development of both situations; we analyse them so as to get the essential factor which matters. The dog apparently did not do so. He seemingly was incapable of this modest amount of analysis and abstraction.
We can now see more clearly what was meant by saying that
Romanes’ phrase (that intelligence “implies a conscious knowledge
of the relation between means employed and
ends attained”) is ambiguous. The dog which lifts
the latch of a gate and goes out when the gate swings
Ambiguity
of phrase “conscious knowledge of means.”
open undoubtedly employs means to reach an end;
he need not analytically think the means as conducive
to the end and the end as reached by the means;
he need not conceive this relationship as exemplified in a number
of particular cases; he need not cognize the universal as distinguished
from the particulars. Perceptual experience, therefore,
does not imply what Romanes states if his words are interpreted
in terms of conception; it does, however, imply that the relationship
is contained within the unanalysed whole of experience
and is a factor contributing to an acquired mode of behaviour.
Opinions differ as to how far, if at all, animals show what we are bound to interpret as the rudiments of conceptual thinking. It is perhaps best to regard the question as still sub judice. The evolutionist school, but not without exception, incline to the view that we find in animals the beginnings of conceptual experience; some are, however, of opinion that, in the absence of language, conceptual analysis is well-nigh impossible, and in any case cannot be carried far. To an evolutionist the assertion that conceptual intelligence could not conceivably have had a natural genesis from perceptual experience, appears to be made on grounds other than scientific. Few if any psychologists contend, on strictly psychological grounds, for a distinction of kind such as Mivart and Wasmann postulate. Conscious experience is indeed sui generis and is distinct in kind from the energy with which the physicist or the physiologist has to deal; but within conscious experience from its earliest manifestation to its latest development scientific psychology only recognizes differences of mode.
In individual development the earliest manifestation of experience is the conscious accompaniment or concomitant of that type of organic behaviour which includes all reflex and instinctive acts. This affords the primordial tissue of experience, including a conscious awareness Stages of development. of the stimulating presentations which initiate organic behaviour and the kinaesthetic presentations which accompany it. Thus arises an awareness of the development of the instinctive situation. Perceptual intelligence depends upon associative re-presentation—the earlier phases of a presented situation calling up a revival of the whole previous experience before its later phases are again actually presented. Through the process of inhibition, to the clearer understanding of which physiology is daily contributing fresh data, the actual development through behaviour of the later phases of the situation is checked, and an acquired modification of the behaviour results. The whole range of perceptual intelligence in animals illustrates the manner in which accommodation to varied circumstances is reached. On these foundations in varied experience conceptual intelligence is developed. The early stages of its development, whether in the child, in whom it unquestionably occurs, or in the higher animals, in which it is not improbably incipient, are difficult to determine on the basis of observation of its expression in behaviour or conduct. But the distinguishing features of conceptual as contrasted with perceptual intelligence are the comparison of situations with a view to their analysis, the disentangling of factors which are of importance for some purpose of interpretation or of conduct, and the attitude of mind which is expressed by saying that the particular case is an example of what experience has shown to be, in technical phrase, universal, and is realized as such. Under the comprehensive phrase, intelligence in animals, this may or may not be included.
INTENDANT (from Lat. intendens, pres. part. of intendere,
to apply the mind to, to watch over; cf. “superintendent”),
the name used in early times in France to designate a functionary
invested by the king with an important and durable commission.[1]
As early as the 14th century the title of intendentes or superintendentes
financiarum was given to the commissaries appointed
by the king to levy the aides, or temporary subsidies. In the
16th century Francis I. created the intendants des finances,
permanent functionaries who formed the central and superior
- ↑ In Germany the title Intendant is applied to the head of public institutions, more particularly to the high officials in charge of court theatres, royal gardens, palaces and the like. The director of certain civic theatres is now also sometimes styled Intendant. The title Generalintendant implies the same official duties, but higher rank. In the German army the Intendantur corresponds to the British quartermaster-general’s and financial departments of the War Office, the French intendance militaire. Subordinate to these are the intendances (Intendanturen) under general officers commanding, the heads of which are in Germany called Korpsintendanten, and in France intendants-généraux, intendants militaires, &c. (see Army, § 58).
