122 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



have nothing in common. Surely, the assumptions of 

 behaviorism are fatal to any religious view of the 

 world. However, it is added, we do not need to 

 worry about behaviorism, for it is already a passing 

 theory, no longer sanctioned by representative psy- 

 chologists. 



But this indictment of behaviorism is full of errors 

 and misconceptions. I think it would be profitable in 

 the pages which follow to inquire more carefully con- 

 cerning the meaning of the behavlorist psychology, 

 whether it necessarily implies a mechanistic view of 

 life and mind, and whether it really is inconsistent 

 with our religious beliefs. Religion cannot afford to 

 make any more mistakes in opposing the advance of 

 science, and In our attitude toward this new move- 

 ment, caution and candor are necessary — and, most of 

 all, understanding. 



For Instance, when It is said that behavlorists deny 

 the existence of the soul, the latter word is evidently 

 used in some metaphysical sense, unknown to psy- 

 chologists of to-day. We all agree that such things as 

 thinking, perceiving, remembering, feeling, reflecting, 

 and deciding, exist. No one doubts the existence of 

 these and many other mental processes, and if we did 

 doubt them, the doubt itself would remain as a men- 

 tal process; and it is just these processes that we mean 

 when we speak of the mind, or of the soul, if you 

 prefer this word. All psychologists study these things, 

 and behavlorists are psychologists. They too study 

 thought and emotion, memory and judgment, joy and 

 satisfaction, reasoning and decision. As for Intima- 

 tions of immortality and intuitions of good and evil — 

 if there be any such, I suppose behavlorists quite as 



