DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 



5 X 3 



science methods. Such terms are mean- 

 ingless to the scientist, therefore, how- 

 ever valuable they may be to the philos- 

 opher. The living organism presents no 

 mind-body dichotomy to the biological 

 observer but is, for him, a unitary object 

 in the same sense that a crystal or other 

 inorganic body is such for the physical 

 scientist. Speculative analysis and inter- 

 pretation, insofar as they are justified at 

 all, belong to the philosopher; the 

 psychologist must use a descriptive ter- 

 minology that properly belongs to the 

 scientific universe of discourse. He can- 

 not juggle into his system subjective 

 categories about which natural science in 

 the nature of the case can know nothing. 



We are not here directly concerned with 

 the specific application of the objective 

 view of Watson to human psychology. 

 However, it may be remarked that insofar 

 as the proper use of anthropomorphic 

 analogy is dependent upon a well- 

 grounded analysis of human consciousness, 

 the behavior is tic issue in human psy- 

 chology is of vital importance to infra- 

 human psychology. Moreover, the dis- 

 tinction at this point is not, strictly 

 speaking, between animal and man but 

 between that part of human psychology 

 in which introspection is possible and the 

 remainder of the field, both animal and 

 human. As Morgan (176) early pointed 

 out, the mental life of the human infant, 

 and certain types of the subnormal and 

 insane can be approached only by the 

 method of analogy applied precisely as in 

 the animal field. From the organismic 

 principle underlying the behavioristic 

 position it would follow that only such 

 data on the normal adult human as can 

 be obtained by objective methods properly 

 belong in a comparative psychology 

 broad enough to include the human 

 species . The view of Watson and of other 

 leading behaviorists (159, 2.38) is that the 



entire range of human experience may be 

 formulated in objective terms and exhaus- 

 tively investigated when appropriate 

 natural science methods have been 

 developed. 



The success of the objective movement 

 in the infra-human field meant the over- 

 throw of the principle of anthropo- 

 morphic analogy. The special dangers 

 involved in the method of analogy had 

 been emphasized by Lubbock, Morgan, 

 Wundt, and many other writers who, in 

 general, defended its use. In his earliest 

 phase, Verworn had stated the obvious 

 logical principle that the greater the 

 similarity between an organism and man 

 the greater the validity of inferences re- 

 garding the psychic life of the former. He 

 appears to have been the first to make use 

 of the now familiar formula :X:A : :C:B, 

 in which the first two terms represent 

 the infra-human and human mental states 

 respectively, and the last two terms the 

 corresponding bodily and behavior charac- 

 teristics. In criticising Verworn's form- 

 ula, Norman (i8z) has shown how utterly 

 unreliable it may be when applied to 

 specific cases. The logical implications of 

 the method of analogy were most lucidly 

 and comprehensively treated by Morgan 

 in the first chapter of his Introduction, in 

 which he also lays down the canon which 

 bears his name. Morgan here stresses the 

 fact that a subjective human psychology 

 is dependent upon ego-centric analogy in 

 much the same way as a subjective animal 

 psychology is dependent upon anthropo- 

 morphic analogy, and offers the only 

 escape from the predicament of solipsism. 

 The behaviorists accepted the reasoning 

 of Morgan, but rejected both types of 

 analogy as being not only fallacious but 

 unnecessary. The leading subjectivists 

 were agreed that analogy, unless applied 

 with extreme caution, was likely to be 

 dangerously speculative, whereas Watson 



