The Study of Consciousness and Behavior 7 



sciousness, seems a suitable subject for a scientific student, 

 we may study it without a too uneasy sense of philosophic 

 heresy and guilt. 



The writer must confess not only to the absence of any spe- 

 cial reverence for the supposed axiom, but also to the pres- 

 ence of a conviction that it is false, the truth being that 

 whatever feature of any animal, say John Smith, of Homo 

 sapiens, is studied - - its length, its color of hair, its body 

 temperature, its toothache, its anxiety, or its thinking of 

 9 x 7 - - the attitude and methods of the student may prop- 

 erly be substantially the same. 



Of the six facts in the illustration just given, the last 

 three would by the traditional view be all much alike for 

 study, and all much unlike any of the first three. The 

 same kind of science, physical science, would be potent for 

 the first three and impotent for the last three (save to give 

 facts about certain physical facts which 'paralleled' them). 

 Conversely one kind of science, psychology, would by the 

 traditional view deal with the last three, but have nothing 

 to say about the first three. 



But is there in actual fact any such radical dichotomy 

 of these six facts as objects of science? Take any task 

 of science with respect to them, for example, identification. 

 A score of scientific men, including John Smith himself, are 

 asked to identify John's stature at a given moment. Each 

 observes it carefully, getting, let us say, as measures : 72.10 

 inches, 72.11, 72.05, 72.08, 72.09, 72.11, etc. 



In the case of color of hair each observes as before, the 

 reports being brown, light brown, brown, light brown, 

 between light brown and brown, and so forth. 



In the case of body temperature, again, each observes 

 as before, there being the same variability in the reports ; 

 but John may also observe in a second way, not by observing 



