REMARKS. The reader may be surprised that the ability to define common abstract words should develop so late. Most children who have had anything like ordinary home or school environment have doubtless heard all of these words countless times before the age of 12 years. Nevertheless, the statistics from the test show unmistakably that before this age such words have but limited and vague meaning. Other vocabulary studies confirm this fact so completely that we may say there is hardly any trait in which 12- to 14-year intelligence more uniformly excels that of the 9- or 10-year level. This is readily understandable when we consider the nature of abstract meanings and the intellectual processes by which we arrive at them. Unlike such words as _tree_, _house_, etc., the ideas they contain are not the immediate result of perceptual processes, in which even childish intelligence is adept, but are a refined and secondary product of relationships between other ideas. They require the logical processes of comparison, abstraction, and generalization. One cannot see justice, for example, but one is often confronted with situations in which justice or injustice is an element; and given a certain degree of abstraction and generalization, out of such situations the idea of justice will gradually be evolved. The formation and use of abstract ideas, of one kind or another, represent, _par excellence_, the "higher thought processes." It is not without significance that delinquents who test near the border-line of mental deficiency show such inferior ability in arriving at correct generalizations regarding matters of social and moral relationships. We cannot expect a mind of defective generalizing ability to form very definite or correct notions about justice, law, fairness, ownership rights, etc.; and if the ideas themselves are not fairly clear, the rules of conduct based upon them cannot make a very powerful appeal.[69] [69] See also p. 298 _ff._ Binet used the words _charity_, _justice_, and _kindness_, and required two successes. In the 1911 revision he shifted the test from year XI to year XII, where it more nearly belongs. Goddard also places it in year XII and uses Binet's words, translating _bonté_, however, as _goodness_ instead of _kindness_. Kuhlmann retains the test in year XI and adds _bravery_ and _revenge_, requiring three correct definitions out of five. Bobertag uses _pity_, _envy_, and _justice_, requires two correct definitions, and finds the test just hard enough for year XII. After using the words _goodness_ and _kindness_ in two series of tests, we have discarded them as objectionable in that they give rise to so many doubtful definitions. Even intelligent children often say: "Goodness means to do something good," "Kindness means to be kind to some one," etc. These definitions in a circle occur less than half as often with _pity_, _revenge_, and _envy_, which are also superior to _charity_ and _justice_ in this respect.