VIII 



IDEALISTIC CONFESSIONS OF A 

 BEHAVIORIST 



By George Thomas White Patrick 



THAT the mathematical and physical sciences 

 are now lending less encouragement to a 

 mechanistic or materialistic world view is 

 becoming known even to newspaper readers. But 

 there seems to be still much doubt about the biological 

 and psychological sciences. Mechanistic interpreta- 

 tions of Darwinism still prevail and psychology has 

 become infected with behaviorism. 



Perhaps nothing in these days has caused so much 

 concern in religious circles as this new theory of be- 

 haviorism. It has produced a kind of shock like Dar- 

 win's Origin of Species in his day, or the Copernican 

 astronomy long ago. It seems to attack the very 

 citadel of religion — the religious nature of man. It 

 denies, as Is supposed, the spiritual character of the 

 soul, its intimations of immortality, its native intui- 

 tions of good and evil, its divine character. It denies. 

 It is feared, the very existence of the soul, and teaches 

 that there is nothing in human personality except the 

 material body. Behaviorism, it is said, goes even fur- 

 ther than this. It Is associated with, if It does not 

 Indeed actually teach, a materialistic and mechanistic 

 world theory, where mechanism alone rules, and where 

 God has no place. Surely, behaviorism and religion 



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