hostile to
"consciousness."

There is a psychological school called "Behaviourists," of whom the
protagonist is Professor John B. Watson,* formerly of the Johns Hopkins
University. To them also, on the whole, belongs Professor John Dewey,
who, with James and Dr. Schiller, was one of the three founders of
pragmatism. The view of the "behaviourists" is that nothing can be known
except by external observation. They deny altogether that there is a
separate source of knowledge called "introspection," by which we can
know things about ourselves which we could never observe in others.
They do not by any means deny that all sorts of things MAY go on in
our minds: they only say that such things, if they occur, are not
susceptible of scientific observation, and do not therefore concern
psychology as a science. Psychology as a science, they say, is only
concerned with BEHAVIOUR, i.e. with what we DO; this alone, they
contend, can be accurately observed. Whether we think meanwhile, they
tell us, cannot be known; in their observation of the behaviour of human
beings, they have not so far found any evidence of thought. True, we
talk a great deal, and imagine that in so doing we are showing that we
can think; but behaviourists say that the talk they have to listen to
can be explained without supposing that people think. Where you might
expect a chapter on "thought processes" you come instead upon a chapter
on "The Language Habit." It is humiliating to find how terribly adequate
this hypothesis turns out to be.

* See especially his "Behavior: an Introduction to
Comparative Psychology," New York, 1914.

Behaviourism has not, however, sprung from observing the folly of men.
It is the wisdom of animals that has suggested the view. It has always
been a common topic of popular discussion whether animals "think." On
this topic people are prepared to take sides without having the vaguest
idea what they mean by "thinking." Those who desired to investigate such
questions were led to observe the behaviour of animals, in the hope that
their behaviour would throw some light on their mental faculties.
At first sight, it might seem that this is so. People say that a
dog "knows" its name because it comes when it is called, and that it
"remembers" its master, because it looks sad in his absence, but wags
its tail and barks when he returns. That the dog behaves in this way is
matter of observation, but that it "knows" or "remembers" anyt