386 'Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



ment. I am firmly convinced that it has practical value, and that 

 this value will appear most strikingly in the perfecting of our 

 inferences concerning consciousness which should result from the 

 careful study of those signs of mind which constitute the bases of 

 our inferences. It w411 do good service in rendering explicit bases 

 of inference of whose existence w^e are unconscious. 



Between nerve physiology on the one hand and comparative 

 psychology on the other stands the study of animal behavior. If 

 w^e should agree that nerve physiology should use objective terms 

 only and comparative psychology subjective terms only, we should 

 still have to ask w^hat sort of descriptions are appropriate for animal 

 behavior. 



At intervals in the development of natural history gross anthro- 

 pomorphism has appeared; everything was described in terms of 

 human experience; at other times attempts have been made to 

 avoid subjective interpretations by the use of purely objective 

 terms. At present w^e are in a state of Jiorror of subjective inter- 

 pretation. Students of animal behavior seem to consider it a sign 

 of weakness on their part to give any hint of an inference concern- 

 ing consciousness. The odd thing, from my point of view% is that 

 they should continue to treat the animals whose behavior they are 

 describing as if they were conscious. 



If there are no such phenomena as we mean to describe by the 

 expressions my pain, your feeling of pleasure, the dog's sensation 

 of sound, then certainly we are not justified in using subjective 

 terms in the description of behavior. It does not follow as a mat- 

 ter of course, however, that we are justified in the use of the sub- 

 jective form of description if the above phenomena do exist, for it 

 is quite possible, as has been pointed out repeatedly, that the con- 

 sciousness of the organism may be merely an epiphenomenon, 

 without influence on the animal's action. Clearly then, there are 

 two questions to consider in connection w'ith descriptions of an 

 animal's behavior: first, has the animal consciousness; second, does 

 consciousness influence behavior ? The possibility of answering 

 the first is not dependent upon our ability to answer the second. 

 As comparative psychologists we are concerned w-ith the study of the 

 forms and distribution of consciousness as well as with its functions. 

 If it can be proven either that an animal is not conscious or 

 that its consciousness has nothing to do with its behavior, then sub- 

 jective terms have no place in the description of the behavior of 



