J.—PSYCHOLOGY. 227 
- aims at marking out a peculiar and exclusive field of objects of study. 
_ The ‘ behaviorist’ slavishly accepts the physical sciences as his model, 
and seeks safety from the charge of being unscientific by confining himself 
to the use of the methods of observation, description, and explanation 
current in those sciences. 
Although a very considerable number of psychologists are following 
these two widely divergent lines (especially, perhaps, in America), I may, 
I think, take it for granted that to the majority of us neither line is 
satisfactory. We feel that both are the expression of a lack of courage ; 
of an undue timidity. In face of the imposing edifice of the physical 
sciences, the one party shrinks back and seeks to define a little field of 
knowledge altogether peculiar to itself, within which the psychologist can 
disport himself at his own sweet will without fear of collision or conflict 
with the other sciences ; the other party seeks safety by taking cover in 
_ the bosom of the herd, carefully avoiding all speech or action that might, 
. by marking him as a distinctive variety of the species scientist, bring 
upon him the suspicious glances of other members of the herd. 
There is yet a third large group of psychologists who, moved by the 
same desire as these others, yet seeing that neither group achieves, nor 
can hope to achieve, a satisfactory science of human nature and conduct, 
seek to escape from the limitations of both groups by combining the 
procedures and the conclusions of both. These adopt the analytic 
description of consciousness (whether of the ‘ sensationists’ or the ‘ con- 
figurationists ’) and they accept the mechanistic explanation of conduct 
of the‘ behaviorists ’ ; and they seek (by the aid of the principle of psycho- 
physical parallelism or of epiphenomenalism) to put the two together in 
parallel columns, to form what can only be called a lame apology for a 
science. 
The very fact that this undue timidity has produced these two widely 
divergent and aberrant (not to say abortive) types of psychology is its 
sufficient condemnation. We should take warning from it; we should 
be led by it to see that a policy of courage is also the policy of safety. I 
urge that we psychologists are now numerous enough and strong enough 
to stand together, to form our own herd, a herd in which our more timid 
members may find the shelter which they crave. In other words, I urge 
that the time has come when the students of human nature should boldly 
claim autonomy, or, at any rate, dominion-status, for their science ; they 
should invoke and boldly apply the principle of self-determination. 
I urge that this policy of safety through boldness is justified and 
demanded at the present time by considerations of three kinds, in addition 
to the fact of the unsatisfactory results of the policy of timidity which 
I have already indicated. 
First, psychology has now at its command an immense mass of data, 
facts of introspective observation and facts of behaviour, demanding to 
é synthesised in our science, not merely to be placed side by side in 
arallel columns. ; 
Secondly, psychology has found many important fields of application, 
education, in medicine, in industry, in the social sciences; and all 
hese require a psychology, a science of human nature, very different from 
e mere description of consciousness and from the mechanistic explanation 
f behaviour, and different also from the parallel-column psychology. 
Q 2 
