Any judgment that may be passed upon the value of the system must take into considera tion the incomplete development of the formu lations. At present it is still little more than a program. There is much more of prophecy than of statement of results. Behaviorism as a method of psychological investigation offers much of promise. That many of the capacities and accomplishments of the indi vidual can be determined objectively is obvious from the ordinary laboratory procedure and an extension of the method is always welcome. It is also true that many explanations of the phe nomena ordinarily called mental can be derived quite as well from the related physiological and neurological processes as from the obser vation of consciousness. How far this can be extended is always a question that can be answered only by the outcome of the attempts. Statements of results can also be given in terms of behavior, but whether the present incon sistencies can best be elitninated by giving over the notion of consciousness altogether IS not so clear.
Several obvious objections to the statement that consciousness has no existence in any form at once present themselves. First and most apparent is the conviction of many com petent observers that they are actually con scious and that this consciousness takes the form of images. That the behaviorists also feel the 'necessity of recognizing some process of the lcind is evident from the attempt men tioned above to give an internal awareness by means of sensory impulses from muscles and glands. A second objection is that so far they have made no attempt to explain how the observer interprets the movements that consti tute the behavior of another. Some attempt should be made to account for the way in which behaviorists appreciate the phenomena in question as well as to explain the phenomena themselves. It might be objected, too, that the activities of man are fully explained in terms of physiological processes, i.e., ultimately in chemical and physical terms. In that case be
haviorism becomes but a branch of physiology. In fact Bechterew has developed this point of view in what he calls objective psychology and reduces human activities exclusively to reflexes of various complexities and orders. Behavior ism must steer a narrow course between phy siology on the one side and some sort of psy chologism on the other, if it is to retain an independent position.
While behaviorism as a final metaphysic is at present but a suggestion with many incon sistencies involved in it, it does offer many advantages as a point of approach for psycho logical problems and as a means of defining psychology as a science without presupposing controverted positions. This definition need not exclude the use of introspection, or com pel one to make use of elaborate roundabout methods of determining simple facts. Thus it is certainly much simpler to study reasoning by means of speech than by slight movements of tongue or larnyx. The results are much more certain and easier to interpret. Why speech should not be admitted to be a form of behavior or writing used in place of the laryn gograph is not apparent from logical considera tions. Stripped of these unessentials, behavior ism is of value as a method and as a slightly different point of view for the interpretation of the relation of mental and physical.
Bibliography.— Angell, 'Behavior as a Category of Psychology' (Psychological Re view, XX, 255) ; Bechterew, (Objektive P.sy chologie) (1913) ; Bode, (Psychology as a Science of Behavior' (Psychological Review, XXI, 46) ; Dunlap, 'Thought-Content and Feeling' (Psychological Review, XXIII, 49); Titchener, 'Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It (Proceedings American Philosophical Society, Vol. LIII, No. 213) ; Watson, 'Psychol ogy as the Behaviorist Views It' (Psychological Review, XX, 158) ; Watson, 'Behavior' (1914, Chaps. 1 and 10) ; Watson, 'The Place of the Conditioned-Reflex in Psychology' (Psycho logical Review, XXIII, 89).