The Study of Consciousness and Behavior g 



do likewise, reporting to himself instead of to them. The 

 similarity of the procedure to that in studying a so-called 

 physical fact is still clearer if we suppose a primitive con- 

 dition of the scales of length and temperature. Suppose 

 for example that for the length of a man we had only 

 1 short' or Hall as a deer/ 'medium' or 'tall as a moose/ 

 and ' tall ' or ' tall as a horse ' ; and for the intensity of the 

 toothache of a man 'little' or 'intense as a pin-prick/ 

 'medium' or 'intense as a knife-cut/ and 'great' or 'in- 

 tense as a spear-thrust.' Then obviously the only difference 

 between the identification of the length of a man's body and 

 the identification of the intensity of his toothache would 

 be that the latter was made by all on the basis of behavior 

 as well as anatomy, and made by the individual having 

 it on the basis of data from an additional sense-organ. 



In actual present practice, if observers were asked to 

 identify the intensity of John's toothache on a scale run- 

 ning from zero intensity up, the variability of the reports 

 would be very great in comparison with those of stature 

 or body-temperature. Supposing the most intense tooth- 

 ache to be called K, we might well have reports of from 

 say .300 K to .450 K, some observers identifying the fact 

 with a condition one and a half times as intense as that 

 chosen by others. But such a variability might also occur 

 in primitive men's judgments of length or temperature. 



It is important to note that the accuracy of John's own 

 identification of it depends in any case on his knowledge 

 of the scale and his power of comparing his toothache there- 

 with. Well-trained outside observers might identify the 

 intensity of John's toothache more accurately than he 

 could. 



In the case of John's anxiety, the most striking fact is 

 the low degree of accuracy in identification. The quality of 



