In 72 years Dr. Charles E. Spearman, emeritus professor of Psychology at University of London, has made his name well-known as a specialist in what he calls "psycho-mathematics." A Fellow of the Royal Society, onetime (1923-26) president of the British Psychological Society, he was, according to his Who's Who entry, "twice thanked by the British Admiralty for psychological services."

Last week Oldster Spearman was in Ann Arbor, Mich, to tell the American Psychological Association convention about a basic mind entity called G.

Commonest criticisms leveled at psychology are that it attempts to measure what is intrinsically unmeasurable, that there are as many psychological systems as there are psychologists, that labels are thrown around with more regard for convenience than precision. Psychology is particularly vulnerable to such attacks from outside because there is so much intra-professional bickering. The famed Stanford-Binet "Intelligence Test" (determination of IQ) is under increasing fire from skeptics who hold that intelligence must be defined before a yardstick can be applied to it, that an individual's social value may be wholly unrelated to his IQ. These skeptics guffaw loudly when, every few months, some bright moppet turns up with an IQ claimed to be greater than Einstein's (TIME, Dec. 10). Lately the embattled proponents of the IQ, and of ability and personality tests in general, have strongly preferred "batteries" of examinations to single tests, in an effort to get a closer approximation of an individual's total mentality.

Such was Dr. Spearman's procedure. Some 1,200 persons were subjected to no less than 94 tests--for aptitude in the arts and sciences, for handling and comprehension of words, even for physical strength and "fancifulness." In all but the last two, Psychologist Spearman found the scores affected by a general factor which he called G. This G appeared to be an innate fund of mental energy, a sort of all-around cerebral handyman at the service of special endeavors and special abilities. Thus a person's proficiency at poker, for example, is the result of his G supply plus his special talent for poker. This becomes a simple equation:

G+S (special ability) = A (aptitude).

G is an inborn quality, may not be increased, may decrease through lack of use. Presumably only the congenital idiot lacks it entirely. Versatile people who do a number of things fairly well are likely to be possessors of much G without pronounced special abilities. Geniuses need both G and an extraordinary special talent, although the amount of G required for music, painting and literature is small. Proficiency in geometry (dealing with space) and in arithmetic (dealing, with numbers) are entirely unrelated except for a common demand on G. Dr. Spearman would not define G exactly, said it might have some connection with "the mass-action of the cortex of the brain."

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