Behaviorism. By John B. Watson, formerly Professor of Psychology and Director of the Psychological Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University. Published by  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York. Pp.  304+Index. Illus.

Behaviorism by Watson. The two words are well nigh synonymous in modern psychological literature. A dynamic, convincing personality has been able to put across a method which is perfectly sound in itself but which has implications which are unnecessary in the reviewer's opinion, and even inimical in many ways to the advance of psychological knowledge. There is no reason why a given psychologist or a group of psychologists should not make up their minds to see what they can learn about the human individual by the same methods of objective study that they apply to rats. In fact there are many good reasons for making this endeavor. It sharpens the power of observation, enriches the store of ingenious devices and tends to objectify phenomena in a wholesome way; but to insist that because this is a perfectly legitimate method of study that an inquiry into the thinking or feeling of the individual that requires his introspection is thereby wrong is a non sequitur. We would recommend for the author a few hours on the couch. That would give him an insight into what the psychoanalysts are talking about when they talk in terms of subjective phenomena that he never will get from his behavioristic viewpoint.

The book is a stimulating one, as is everything that comes from the author's pen, and it is particularly happy in that portion of it which deals with the instincts and which does not take for granted the theory of the inheritance of instinctive tendencies but demands a checking up of the actual situations under which they appear and hazards the conclusion that they are born of the situation as it expresses itself in stimuli. It is quite analogous to the situation with reference to heredity and environment. The glib relegation of all sorts of things to the mechanism of heredity results in a fatalistic, do-nothing attitude. Checking up each instance as if no such belief or theory existed discloses the fact that the theory is not adequate in many instances. Whether it will in a