i9>4-] BEHAVIORIST VIEWS IT." 15 



suppose, are likely to be impatient; and their impatience does not 

 affect the value of their proposed reforms. We need not regard this 

 hurry, either, as of the essence of behaviorism. Watson himself, in 

 less fervid mood, might not grudge us a little time for the study of 

 his plans, — would even recognize, I believe, that our hasty acceptance 

 of them, without due consideration, must be more dangerous than a 

 reasonable delay. 



So we come at last to behaviorism itself; and what I take that to 

 be I can best indicate by a parallel. In the disciplines which we call 

 physiological psychology and psychophysiology we are interested, 

 with slight difference of emphasis, in the two aspects of certain phe- 

 nomena of the living organism; we seek to couple physiological with 

 psychological, psychological with physiological, and so to get a com- 

 plete description of the psychophysical. We may, now, in just the 

 same way, speak of biological psychology and of psychobiology ; in- 

 deed, those terms are already in use, and their general significance is 

 plain. But here is the context to which behaviorism, if I understand 

 it aright, must of necessity belong ; it is the biological side of a biolog- 

 ical psychology or of a psychobiology ; I cannot make it more, and I 

 do not think that its practitioners can make it less. The argument 

 is as follows : 



The behaviorist, as Watson describes him, also studies certain 

 phenomena of the living organism. In theory, he may study these 

 phenomena in either of two different ways. He may regard them as 

 phenomena simply, as last facts, as things given, as phenomena to be 

 taken at their face value and described and explained in their own 

 right : then, he is working in what we are accustomed to call biology ; 

 he has adopted no new standpoint and needs no new name. Or again 

 he may regard them as symptomatic ; as reporting, expressing, indicat- 

 ing, leading up to something beyond themselves ; as claiming detailed 

 study, not only in their own right as data of biology, but also because 

 of this further and specific character of report or expression. Here 

 is ground for a discipline other than biology; a novel point of view 

 has been attained. At once, however, the question arises : What, 

 then, is it that the phenomena report or express ? Of what are they 

 symptomatic? The answer seems obvious: they are symptomatic of 



