Intelligence...

Who said psychology is boring? My lecturer brought up this quote which I found rather interesting. It's by a guy called William James who was trying to define intelligence by comparing humans to inanimate objects.


....If we pass from such actions as these to those living things, we notice a striking difference. Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves toward her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card.

Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips directly. With the filings, the path is fixed; whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is fixed, and the path may be modified indefinitely.

-William James (1890)