With the change in point of view that has come from the adoption of the biological conception of the mind the discrimination of the different forms of feeble-mindedness must be recognized as a distinction in the emphasis on intellectual, emotional and conative processes, not a distinction between actually separable forms of mental activity. On account of the organic nature of the mind it is well established that various mental processes are mutually dependent. Any disturbance of the emotional processes will tend to affect the thinking and vice versa. Even if we believe that emotions are complex facts, involving vague sensations as well as feelings, and that terms like emotion, memory, reasoning and will are names for classes of mental facts rather than for mental powers, it still remains important to distinguish between feeling, intellect and will, as well as to recognize the interdependence of the mental processes. Common sense seems to agree with psychological descriptions in regarding mind as a broader term than intellect, and feeble-mindedness as a broader term than intellectual feebleness.
Since tests at present tend to reach the intellectual processes more surely than the emotional, we describe those who fail in them as intellectually deficient. The term “intellect” seems to be better than “intelligence” because the latter seems to include information as well as capacity, while the aim of measuring scales has been to eliminate the influence of increasing information with age. To be thoroughly objective, of course, one should talk about “feebleness in tested abilities;” but we would then fail to point out the important fact about our present scales that they detect mainly intellectual deficiency, that they do not reach those forms of feeble-mindedness in which the weakness in such traits as stability, ambition, perseverance, self-control, etc., is not great enough to interfere with the brief intellectual processes necessary for passing tests. Intellectual deficiency will be used hereafter to refer to those social deficients whose feebleness is disclosed by our present test scales.
In the opinion of Kuhlmann these cases of disturbed emotions and will which shade off into different forms of insanity should not be classed as feeble-minded at all, although he recognizes that they are commonly placed in this group. He regards them as an intermediate class between the feeble-minded and the insane. He says: “They readily fail in the social test for feeble-mindedness and because of the absence of definite symptoms of insanity are often classed as feeble-minded. In the opinion of the present writer they should not be so classed, because they require a different kind of care and treatment, and have a different kind of capacity for usefulness” ([140]). So long as this group of what we shall term “conative cases” is discriminated from the intellectually deficient it matters less whether they be regarded as a sub-group of the feeble-minded or as a co-ordinate class. In grouping them with the feeble-minded we have followed the customary classification. An estimate of the size of this group will be considered later in Chapter III.
C. Doubtful Intellects Accompanied by Delinquency Presumed Deficient.
Conative forms of feeble-mindedness are perhaps the most serious types in the field of delinquency. They are the troublesome portion of the borderland group of deficient delinquents about which there is so much concern. It is important to remember that it is just among these cases that the test judgment is least certain. In this dilemma one principle seems to be sound enough psychologically to be likely to meet with acceptance. I should state this principle as follows: A borderline case which has also shown serious and repeated delinquency should be classed as feeble-minded, the combination of doubtful intellect and repeated delinquency making him socially unfit. This will relieve the practical situation temporarily until tests are perfected which will detect those whose feebleness is specialized in those phases of volition centering around the instinctive passions, control, balance, interest and endurance. The principle recognizes that mental weakness is sometimes emphasized in the volitional processes of the mind.
The principle is apparently in conflict with the rule advocated by Dr. Wallin. Referring to the mental levels reached by individuals, he says: “We cannot consider X-, XI-, or XII-year-old criminals as feeble-minded because they happen to be criminals and refuse to consider X-, XI-, and XII-year-old housewives, farmers, laborers and merchants as feeble-minded simply because they are law abiding and successful” (214, p. 707). At another place he insists “that the rule must work both ways” (215, p. 74). Logically it would seem at first that it was a poor rule which did not work both ways. Further consideration will show, I believe, that there has been a confusion of feeble-mindedness with tested deficiency. If all the feeble-minded tested deficient intellectually then the tested level should determine whether or not they were feeble-minded. This, however, is not a correct psychological description of the facts. I prefer, therefore, to allow for those in a defined narrow range of weak intellects to be classed as deficient provided their weakness also manifests itself pronouncedly in the conative sphere.
The principle that all mental deficients need not show the same low degree of intellectual ability is clearly recognized in perhaps the most important legal enactment on deficiency which has been passed in recent years, the British Mental Deficiency Act of 1913. It states regarding “moral imbeciles” that they are persons “who from an early age display some permanent mental defect coupled with strong vicious or criminal propensities on which punishment has had little or no deterrent effect.” It specifically distinguishes them from the group of feeble-minded which require guardianship because of inability to care for themselves.
[3]. In Great Britain the term is restricted to those above the imbecile group.