NATURE , ee 
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1915. 

PSYCHOLOGY. WITHOUT CONSCIOUS- 
NESS. 
An Introduction to Comparative 
Psychology. By Prof. J. B. Watson. Pp. 
xii+439. (New York: H. Holt and Co., 1914.) 
Price 1.75 dollars. 
Y the nature of its subject-matter, psychology 
has been more handicapped than any other 
science as regards both methods and aims. This 
is a truism which may qualify the following state- 
ment of Prof. Watson: ‘‘ Psychology has failed 
signally during the fifty odd years of its existence 
as an experimental discipline to make its place 
in the world as an undisputed natural science.” 
He is quite justified in saying that psychology 
“as it is generally thought of, has something 
esoteric in its methods. If you fail to reproduce 
my findings, it is not due to some fault in your 
apparatus or the control of your stimuli, but it is 
due to the fact that your introspection is un- 
trained. ... If you can’t observe 3—g9 states 
of clearness in attention, your introspection is 
poor. If, on the other hand, a feeling seems 
reasonably clear to you, your introspection is 
again faulty. You are experiencing too much.” 
This kind of psychological method has been par- 
ticularly exploited by the Germans. Again, the 
science has almost evaporated ‘“‘in speculative 
questions concerning the elements of mind, the 
nature of conscious content (e.g., imageless 
thought, attitudes and Bewusstseinslage, etc.)” ; 
a practical result is that the concept of sensation 
is “‘unusable, either for the purpose of analysis 
or that of synthesis.” Generally, the axiom that 
psychology is a study of the phenomena of con- 
sciousness has been thoroughly mischievous; no 
data have been accorded any importance except 
in so far as they throw light upon conscious 
states. Compromises have been attempted; a line 
has been tentatively drawn where ‘associative 
memory” in animals begins; consciousness has 
been assumed to commence where “reflex and 
instinctive activities fail properly to conserve the 
organism,” or “whenever we find the presence 
of diffuse activity which results in habit-formation, 
we are justified in assuming consciousness.” Not 
the least result of such pre-suppositions is the 
divorce of the study from practical human 
interests. 
The new school of what Prof. Watson terms 
“behaviorism’”’ has, as his volume well shows, 
thrown overboard much conceptual lumber of the 
sort sketched above, and comparative psychology 
is able to act untrammelled. 
NO. 2369, VOL. 95| 
Behavior: 

“Tt is possible to | 

write a psychology (as‘thé seienté“of behavior ’) 
and never go back upon the definition; never to 
use the terms consciousness, mental states, mind, 
content, will, imagery, and the like. . . . It can 
be done in terms of stimulus and response, in 
terms of habit formation, habit integration, and 
the like.” The starting-point is the observable 
fact that “organisms, man and animal alike, do 
adjust themselves to their environment by means 
of hereditary and habit equipments; . . . - cer- 
tain stimuli lead the organisms to make the re- 
sponses.” Thus, with the elimination of investi- 
gational reference to consciousness, mental state, 
or imagery (as previously such reference to soul 
and mind (its successor) had been discredited), 
the barrier between psychology and objective 
sciences is removed; ‘the findings of psychology 
become the functional correlates of structure and 
lend themselves to explanation in physico- 
chemical terms.” ‘‘The behavior of man and the 
behavior of animals must be considered on the 
same plane.” 
This latest reforming of the comparative psycho- 
logical front may be considered strategically 
sound, and should lead to advances along all the 
line. Little has been accomplished yet, but the 
resulting clearness of objective is already promis- 
ing. For instance, Prof. Watson’s discussion of 
the differences between man and animal; convolu- 
tion of brain surface probably means nothing 
per se. Wundt assumed that the apperception 
centres resided in the frontal lobe; for this view 
there is no probability, but since the frontal lobe 
“was the last brain tissue put on in evolution, 
and is to be found chiefly in man, we have hastened 
to assign to its care all those functions in which 
man is thought chiefly to excel the brute.” The 
break between man and brute is “the lack of well- 
developed speech mechanisms in animals and the 
consequent lack of language habits: ..:. he 
lack of language habits forever differentiates 
brute from man.” 
The general reader and the beginner in com- 
parative psychology will find this impartial and 
well-reasoned volume invaluable. Some of the 
best matter is the result of the author’s own 
e.g., With terns, monkeys, and 
A. E. CRAWLEY. 
experiments, 
rodents. 

WATER, SEWAGE, AND FOOD. 
(1) The Chemical Examination of Water, Sewage, 
Foods, and other Substances. By J. E. Purvis 
and T. R. Hodgson. Pp. 228. (Cambridge: 
At the University Press, 1914.) Price gs. net. 
(2) Water Supplies: their Purification, Filtration, 
and Sterilisation. A Handbook for the Use of 
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