The Freudian Wish and its Place in Ethics
Supplement: Response and Cognition[1]
Edwin B. Holt
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I. THE SPECIFIC-RESPONSE RELATION
THE novelty exhibited by things at the moment of their synthesis into an organized whole has been frequently commented on. Such moments may seem to be ' critical,' as when two gases condense into a liquid and the phenomena exhibited by gases are replaced by those characteristic of fluids ; or there may be less appearance of discontinuity, as when a solid is slowly dissolved in a liquid and the latter as slowly acquires new properties. In either case, separate entities have been organized into a new whole, and their former action as independent parts is now combined in the action of the whole. And while it is obvious that the whole is nothing more than the parts as thus organized, and that the properties of the whole are nothing more than
(154) the properties of the parts now acting in coöperation, it is nevertheless true that the whole now does things which the isolated parts never did or could do. New phenomena, new laws and functions have been developed.
Most of us believe that the appearance of life was such a critical moment in the evolution of the universe: that life came into existence when some, perhaps a specific, sort of chemical process was set up under such conditions as maintained it around a general point of equilibrium. The result was undoubtedly novel ; and more novelties were to come. Living substance was to acquire a protective envelope, to become irritable, conductive, and contractile, to develop specific irritability to many stimuli, to get the power of locomotion, and much else. Now in the course of this further evolution, there is a critical point which is worthy of notice. It is the point where the irritable, contractile, and conductive tissues develop systematic relations which enable them to function as an integral whole. Here, too, novelty ensues.
How ' critical' this point is, how sudden and well-defined, or, on the other hand, how gradual, cannot as yet be told. The integrative process in
(155) the nervous system, as Sherrington so well calls it, has not, even yet, been observed in sufficient detail. But this is of secondary importance; and the result of the process we do know definitely. This is, that the phenomena evinced by the integrated organism are no longer merely the excitation of nerve or the twitching of muscle, nor yet the play merely of reflexes touched off by stimuli. These are all present and essential to the phenomena in question, but they are merely components now, for they have been integrated. And this integration of reflex arcs, with all that they involve, into a state of systematic interdependence has produced something that is not merely reflex action. The biological sciences have long recognized this new and further thing, and called it ' behavior.'
Of recent years, many of the workers in animal psychology have been coming to call this the science of behavior, and have been dwelling less and lesson the subject of animal' consciousness.' They do not doubt, any of them, that at least the higher animals are ' conscious ' ; but they find that nothing but the behavior of animals is susceptible of scientific observation. Furthermore, several students in the human field have come to the same con-
(156) -clusion—that not the 'consciousness,' but the behavior of one's fellow-men, and that alone, is open to investigation. Several volumes have been put forth which even undertake to construe human psychology entirely in terms of behavior. It is obvious that this is an unstable condition in which the science now finds itself. We cannot continue thus, each man proclaiming his own unquestionable gift of ‘consciousness,' but denying that either his fellowmen or the animals evince the slightest indication of such a faculty. Now I believe that a somewhat closer definition of 'behavior' will show it to involve a hitherto unnoticed feature of novelty, which will throw light on this matter.
Precisely how does this new thing, ' behavior,' differ, after all, from mere reflex action? Cannot each least quiver of each least muscle fiber be wholly explained as a result of a stimulus impinging on some sense-organ, and setting up an impulse which travels along definite nerves with definite connections, and comes out finally at a definite muscle having a certain tonus, etc., all of which is merely reflex action? Yes, exactly each least component can be so explained, for that is just what, and all that, it is. But it is the coördinated totality
(157) of these least components which cannot be described in such terms, nor indeed in terms resembling these. For such neural and reflex terms fail to seize that integration factor which has now transformed reflex action into something else, i.e., behavior. We require, then, an exact definition of behavior.
But before proceeding to this definition we shall probably find useful an illustration from another science, which was once in the same unstable state of transition as psychology is now. In physics a theory of causation once prevailed, which tried to describe causal process in terms of successive states,' the 'state' of a body at one moment being the cause of its 'state' and position at the next. Thus the course of a falling body was described as a series of states (a, b, c, d, etc.), each one of which was the effect of the state preceding, and cause of the one next following. This may be designated as the 'bead theory' of causation. Inasmuch, however, as nothing could be observed about one of these ' states ' which would show why the next ' state' must necessarily follow, or, in other words, since the closest inspection of ' states' gave no clew toward explaining the course or even
(158) the continuance of the process, an unobservable impetus (vis viva, Anstoss, 'force') was postulated This hidden impetus was said to be the ultimate secret of physical causation. But, alas, a secret ! For it remained, just as the 'consciousness' of one's fellow-man remains to-day in psychology,[2] utterly refractory to further investigation. Now 'myth ' is the accepted term to apply to an entity which is believed in, but which eludes empirical inquiry. This mythical vis viva has now, in good part owing to the efforts of Kirchhoff and Hertz, been rejected, and, what is more important, with it has gone the bead theory itself. It is not the ‘previous state' of the falling body which causes it to fall, but the earth's mass. And it is not in the 'previous state' but in laws that explanation resides, and no laws for falling bodies or for any other process could, on the terms of the bead theory, be extracted from the phenomena. But laws were easily found for physical processes, if the observer persuaded himself to make the simple
(159) inquiry, What are the objects doing? [3] Now the falling body is not merely moving downwards past the successive divisions of a meter-stick which I have placed beside it (which is all that the bead theory would have us consider), nor is it essentially moving toward the floor which, since a floor happens to be there, it will presently strike. The body is essentially moving toward the center of the earth, and these other objects could be removed without altering the influence of gravity. In short, the fall of a body is adequately described as a function of its mass, of the earth's mass, and of the distance between the centers of the two. And the function is constant, is that which in change remains unchanged (in the case cited it is a constant acceleration). The physical sciences, of course, have now explicitly adopted this function theory of causation.[4] Every physical law is in the last analysis the statement of a constant function between one process or thing and some other process or thing. This abandonment of the bead theory in
( 160) favor of the function theory requires, at the first, some breadth and some bravery of vision.
Now psychology is at the present moment addicted to the bead theory, and I believe that this is responsible for the dispute about ' consciousness' versus behavior. Our disinclination to follow the physical sciences, to adopt the functional view in place of the bead theory, has hindered us from defining accurately what behavior is, and this has prevented us from recognizing a remarkable novelty which is involved in behavior, and which is the result of reflex action becoming organized.
We are prone, even the 'behaviorists' among us, to think of behavior as somehow consisting of reflex activities. Quite true, so far as it goes. So, too, coral reefs in the last analysis consist of positive and negative ions, but the biologist, geographer, or sea-captain would miss his point if he conceived them in any such terms. Yet we are doing the very same thing when we conceive the behavior of a man or animal in the unintegrated terms of neural process ; which means, agreeably to the bead theory, the impinging of stimulus on sense-organ, the propagation of ionization waves along a fiber, their spread among various other fibers, their combining
(161) with other similar waves, and eventually causing the lowered or heightened tonus of muscle. All this is happening. But our account has overlooked the most essential thing of all—the organization of these processes.
If now we pitch the misleading bead theory straight overboard, and put our microscope back into its case, we shall be free to look at our behaving organism (man, animal, or plant), and to propound the only pertinent, scientific question—What is this organism doing? All agree that empirical study will elicit the answer to this question, and in the end the complete answer.
What, then, is it doing? Well, the plant is being hit by the sun's rays and is turning its leaves until they all lie exactly at right angles to the direction of these rays : the stentor, having swum into a region of CO2 is backing off, turning on its axis, and striking out in a new direction : the hen has got a retinal image of a hawk and she is clucking to her brood—shoot the hawk or remove the brood and she stops clucking, for she is reacting to neither one nor the other, but to a situation in which both are involved : the man is walking past my window ; no, I am wrong, it is not past my window that he is
(162) walking; it is to the theater; or am I wrong again? Perhaps the man is a journalist, and not the theater, nor yet the play, but the ' society write-up ' it is to which the creature's movements are adjusted; further investigation is needed. This last instance is important, for the man ' walking past my window' is generally doing so in no more pertinent a sense than does the dead leaf fall to the ground past my window.' Both are doing something else. Herein the folly of the bead theory becomes clear. This theory says that in order to understand the man's actions, as he walks by, we must consider his successive ' states,' for each one is the cause of each succeeding one. And if we follow the theory faithfully, it leads us back to the successive states ' of each component process, and ever back, till we arrive at the flow of ions in neuro-muscular tissue; in which disintegrating process the man with which he started is completely dissolved and lost.[5] But now the functional view, moving in
(163) precisely the opposite direction, admonishes us to keep the man whole (if it is behavior that we are studying) and to study his movements until we have discovered exactly what he is doing, that is, until we have found that object, situation, process (or perhaps merely that relation) of which his behavior is a constant function. The analysis of this behavior, as thus exactly described, will come in later ; but it in turn will be carried on in the same spirit—i.e., of discovering always and solely functions. The movements of a plant, animal, or man are always a constant function of something, or a combination of such constant functions, and these —the movements, the functions, and the things of which the movements are a function—are always open to empirical investigation.
As a matter of fact the biologists and the behaviorists are doing just this thing—discovering constant functions. They are describing the motions of plant leaves as a function of the direction of the sun's rays, and are doing the same for all the aspects of animal behavior as well. They have done this for a long time. And there is nothing 'novel' in behavior as so described. My point is, firstly, that while the behaviorists are indeed doing
(164) this, which is just the right thing, they do not realize the significance of that which they are doing. And this is because, secondly, they are not aware of the remarkable novelty which behavior, considered just as they are considering it, does in fact involve.
An exact definition of behavior will reveal this. Let us go about this definition. Behavior is, firstly, a process o f release. The energy with which plants and animals move ('behave') is not derived from the stimulus, but is physiologically stored energy previously accumulated by processes of assimilation. The stimulus simply touches off this energy.
Secondly, behavior is not a function o f the immediate stimulus. There are cases, it is true, in which behavior is a function, though even here not a very simple function, of the stimulus. These are cases of behavior in its lower stages of development, where it is just emerging from the direct reflex process. They demonstrate the continuity of evolution at this point—a most important fact. But as behavior evolves, any correlation between it and the stimuli which are immediately affecting the organism becomes increasingly remote, so that even in fairly simple cases it can no longer be
(165) demonstrated. This fact, that the immediate stimulus recedes in importance, is the interesting point about the integration of reflexes. It has been widely recognized in psychology ; perhaps most conspicuously by Spencer, who generally refers to it under the term ' higher correspondence.' One will see in what relatively early stages of integration the immediate stimulus is thus lost sight of, if one considers how even the ' retinal image' (to say nothing of the distant object which casts that image) is not, in an exact sense, the actual physiological stimulus ; yet the organism ' behaves ' with regard only to the distant object. Since, then, behavior is not essentially a function of immediate stimulus, this latter cannot enter into a definition of behavior.
But on the other hand, thirdly, behavior remains a function of some object, process, or aspect of the objective environment (including, in rare cases, the internal vegetative organs ; which are still, however, ' objective '). And this is our crucial point. Not quite adequately realized by the behaviorists, it is terra totaliter incognita to the subjectivists. And the proposition negates their whole gospel, including especially the notion of 'consciousness.'
( 166) I shall revert to this. Here we need only note that the behaving organism, whether plant, fellow-man, or one's own self, is always doing something, and the fairly accurate description of this activity will invariably reveal a law (or laws) whereby this activity is shown to be a constant function of some aspect of the objective world. One has here the same task as in any other strictly physical science. In both cases some accuracy is needed, and in both alike this accuracy can generally be advanced by more exhaustive observation. Thus it is inaccurate to say that a river flows toward the sea, since it meanders about in all directions ; while it is fairly accurate to describe it as always flowing toward the next lower level of the earth's surface, and this is a law describing flow as a constant function of the earth's crust and the position of the earth's center. The test is, of course, whether this or that could be removed without changing the river's course: the ‘sea' could be removed, the 'next lower level' could not. So in behavior, the flock of birds is not, with any accuracy, flying over the green field ; it is, more essentially, flying southwards ; but even this is only a rough approximation to a law of migration. In all events the flock of birds is doing
(167) something, and the sole question which we need ever ask is, "What is it doing? " I have elsewhere explained how the same question, and it alone, is applicable to one's own behavior (voluntary or other).[6]
Now I believe that the foregoing three propositions yield a definition of behavior. It would run: Behavior is any process o f release which is a function of factors external to the mechanism released.
But why 'any' process when it is well known that behavior is a phenomenon found in none but living organisms? Precisely because behavior as thus defined is in fact a striking novelty, which does not, so far as I am able to ascertain, occur anywhere in the evolutionary series prior to the appearance of organized response. This point is somewhat later, too, than that at which life appears. In the ordinary inorganic case of released energy, the process, once touched off, proceeds solely according to factors internal to the mechanism released. When a match is touched to gunpowder the explosion is a function of nothing but the amount, quality, arrangement, etc., of the
(168) powder. The beginning of the process is a function of the moment of firing; but that is all. When, on the other hand, an organism with integrated nervous system is stimulated, the organism, by virtue of internal energy released, proceeds to do something of which the strict scientific description can only be that it is a constant function of some feature of the environment ; and this latter is by no means necessarily the stimulus itself. The organism responds specifically to something outside,[7] just as the falling body moves specifically toward the earth's center. This fact offers no opening for the introduction here of 'subjective' categories: the investigator continues to ask, merely, What is the organism doing? The answer will be in strictly objective terms. It cannot be said that the ordinary release process is a function of the temperature, moisture, etc., of the surrounding air, for it is in fact a function of these only in so far as they penetrate and become internal to the released mechanism. In behavior, on the other hand, there is a genuine ' objective reference' to the environment which is not found, so far as I can learn,
(169) in the inorganic, or in the organic world prior to integrated reflex response. This is the novelty which characterizes behavior. And here, if anywhere, evolution turned a corner.
In the second place, it may be noted that the definition neither excludes nor yet makes essential the case of the immediate stimulus being the object of which the behavior is a constant function. This often happens, and is characteristic of the simpler instances where behavior is only beginning to be differentiated from plain reflex action. Evolution is of course not discontinuous, and the development from reflex action to highly organized behavior is one in which the correlation between stimulus and organism becomes less and less direct, while that between the organism and the object of response becomes more and more prominent. Plain reflex action is a function of the stimulus and of factors internal to the neuro-muscular arc. Then presently one finds reflex movements that are due, as one must (with Sherrington) agree, to 'so-to-say stored stimuli'; since the immediate stimulus does not account for the reflex movement. It is here that behavior begins, and precisely here that the 'bead theory' would lead us astray. The response
( 170) in question is a response to a past event, it is describable only in terms of (as a function of) this past event ; while the bead theory would let us look only to the present condition of neuro-muscular tissue, the 'so-to-say stored stimuli.' These are of course an integral part of the causal process, but not the more enlightening part; just as the measurements of the velocity of a body at successive moments are an integral part of its fall to earth, while if we considered nothing but these, we should never arrive at the true law of fall—a constant acceleration toward the earth's center. Or it is again as if, when one had photographed the spectrum of a newly-discovered earth, one were misled by the bead theory into considering the result as ' merely light and dark parallel lines on a gelatine negative.' It is this, indeed, but it is also an interesting combination of metallic spectra. Or, again, the camera photographs a motor-car race, and the sensitive plate is affected a millionth of a second later than that in which the phase photographed occurred. By the time the print is obtained the race is long since over. The bead theory then says : This is only a black-and-white mottled slip of paper, it is no function of the racing motors. It is in just this
(171) way that in studying behavior we think that the only scientific view of it must be in terms of ionized nerve and twitching muscle. Is it any wonder, then, that having ignored the objective functional reference o f behavior, we are led into the superstition of ‘ideas ' in the ' sensorium ' which have an ' objective reference' to the environment?
If now the behaviorist will bear in mind that he is scientifically justified in asking broadly, What is the organism doing?, he will discover that it is set to act as a constant function of some aspect of the environment, and he will find this to be the scientific description of the phenomenon he is studying. Then with this accurate description as a basis, he can proceed to analyze it into its reflex components and the relations by which they have been organized into behavior.
II. COGNITION AS RESPONSE
We have now a compact and, as I believe, a rather precise definition of behavior or, as it might be called, the relation of specific response. And we are in a position to compare it with the cognitive relation, the relation between the ' psycholog-
( 172) -ical subject and its object of consciousness.' Our aim would be to see how far those phenomena which we ordinarily attribute to ' consciousness ' may be intrinsically involved by this strictly objective and scientifically observable behavior.
Firstly, as to the object cognized, the 'content of consciousness.' It is obvious that the object of which an organism's behavior is a constant function corresponds with singular closeness to the object of which an organism is aware, or of which it is conscious. When one is conscious of a thing, one's movements are adjusted to it, and to precisely those features of it of which one is conscious. The two domains are conterminous. It is certain, too, that it is not generally the stimulus to which one is adjusted, or of which one is conscious: as such classic discussions as those about the inverted retinal image and single vision (from binocular stimulation) have shown us. Even when one is conscious of things that are not there, as in hallucination, one's body is adjusted to them as if they were there; and it behaves accordingly.[8] In some
(173) sense or other they are there; as in some sense there are objects in mirrored space. Of course the objects of one's consciousness, and of one's motor adjustments, may be past, present, or future: and similar temporally forward and backward functional relations are seen in many inorganic mechanisms. If it be thought that there can be consciousness without behavior, I would say that the doctrine of dynamogenesis, and indeed the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism itself, assert just the contrary. Of course muscle tonus and 'motor set' are as much behavior as is the more extensive play of limb. In short, I know not what distinction can be drawn between the object of consciousness and the object of behavior.
Again, if the object of which behavior is a constant function is the object of consciousness, that function o f it which behavior is presents a close parallel to volition. Psychological theory has never quite succeeded in making will a content of knowledge in the same sense as sensation, perception, and thought; the heterogeneous (motor-image) theory being manifestly untrue to rather the larger part of will acts. Indeed, in the strict sense the theory of innervation feelings is the only
( 174) one which ever allowed will to be, in its own right, a content. All other views, including the heterogeneous, show one's knowledge of one's own will acts to be gained by a combination of memory and the direct observation of what one's own body is doing. And this is quite in harmony with the idea that what one wills is that which one's body does (in attitude or overt act) toward the environment. In a larger sense, however, and with less deference to the tendencies of bead theorizing, one's volitions are obviously identical with that which one's body in the capacity of released mechanism does. If a man avoids draughts, that is both the behavior and the volition at once, and any motor-image, 'fiat,' or other account of it merely substitutes some subordinate aspect for that which is the immediate volition.[9]
The case is somewhat different if we inquire what in behavior corresponds to the 'knower' of the cognitive relation. Clearly this knower can be nothing but the body itself ; for behaviorism, the body is aware, the body acts. But this body will hardly take the place, in many minds, of that metaphysical ' subject' which has been thought to be
(175) the very nucleolus of the ego. Yet something can be said for the neuro-muscular organism in the capacity of cognitive subject.[10] In so far as the ' subject ' is supposed to serve as the center of perception and apperception and guarantor of the ' unity' of consciousness, the central nervous system will serve admirably. In fact it is, precisely, a perdurable central exchange where messages from the outer world meet and react on one another and on ' the so-to-say stored stimuli,' and whence the return impulses emerge. Furthermore it is securely established that by just as much as this central nervous exchange has its unity impaired, by just so much is the unity of apperception (including the ' transcendental') impaired. Dissociation of the neural complex means dissociation of personality, cognitive as well as volitional. Again, in so far as the metaphysical ' subject' is defined as the ' necessary correlate' of the object in knowledge, the body may well serve this function. For in the response relation, as above defined, it does precisely this: without the body the outer object would obviously never become the object of behavior. And
(176) should otherwise the response relation turn out to be the cognitive relation, the physical organism will necessarily take its place as ' correlate of the object,' and supersede the metaphysical subject. I am not aware that this ' subject' has ever served any other actually empirical wants, useful as it may be in the higher flights of speculation. And one recalls that of this more transcendental aspect of the ' subject ' James said, that " the ' Self of selves,' when carefully examined, is found to consist mainly of the collection of these peculiar motions in the head or between the head and throat."[11] It will be recalled, too, that so faithful an idealist as Schopenhauer found reason to declare that " the philosophers who set up a soul as this metaphysical kernel, i.e., an originally and essentially knowing being," have made a false assertion. For, he goes on to say, " knowing is a secondary function and conditioned by the organism, just like any other."[12] I venture to predict that behaviorism will be able to give a complete account of cognition without invoking the services of the
(177) 'metaphysical subject' nor of any one of its swarming progeny of Ego's.
We have seen that behavior, as " any process of release which is a function of factors external to the mechanism released," in so far accounts for the phenomena of cognition that it provides a content of knowledge, a wilier, and a knower. Let us now consider it in respect to three remaining psychological phenomena : attention, feeling, and personality.
Attention is the most difficult of these topics, and the problem resolves itself, to my mind, the most neatly : this problem being, What in behavior would correspond to attention in cognition? Suppose, however, that we first ask, What in the attention of empirical psychology corresponds to ' attention' as understood by the more or less stillcurrent faculty and rational psychologies? These latter say that the ' soul' is unitary, and that it ‘attends' to one 'idea' at a time, or to a unified group of ' ideas.' It follows that there are ' ideas' to which the soul is not attending ; also, quite inevitably, that attention is the act of attending. Bon! On the empirical side we have attention as " the taking possession by the mind, in clear and
(178) vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.[13] The essentials in this definition are will, clearness or vividness (degrees of consciousness), selection (or its converse, inhibition). The volitional element in behavioristic attention will be, as we have already seen, the process whereby the body assumes and exercises an adjustment or motor set such that its activities are some function of an object; are focused on an object. The selection or inhibition factor has already been so unanimously explained in terms of neuro-muscular augmentation and inhibition that I need not dwell on it further. Clearness, vividness, or degree o f consciousness is the crux. And this is in fact what the faculty and rationalistic accounts of attention have come down to in empirical psychology.
It would be unfair to say that empirical psychology has now merely renamed attention, and called it ' clearness.' It has analyzed the faculty of ' attention,' and by separating out the factors
(179) (volitional, etc.) that belong elsewhere, it has found the core in ' clearness,' or, better, grades of consciousness. But I cannot see that empirical psychology has done more than this. It teaches that there are degrees of being conscious; and this is a singular doctrine, for it goes much against the grain to say that an idea can be more or less conscious. From the nature of the case introspection cannot help here,[14] for one cannot attend to an idea of any of the lesser grades of clearness, idem est, to an idea which is not attended to. The notion savors of Spencer's 'Unknowable,' of which he knew so much. In an acute discussion of this concept Barker says : " When it is said that clearness is a simple and indefinable attribute comparable with quality, intensity, extension, and duration, I simply do not find in the statement the description of anything which I can recognize in my own experience."[15] I bring forward these considerations in order not to disparage the 'clearness' doctrine, but to show, if possible, exactly what it is that
(180) behaviorism must account for if it is to account for attention.
Now there are psychological phenomena which have seemed to argue for this notion of ' clearness' The first is that ideas come into consciousness and go out of it, and that this process is oftentimes, apparently, not instantaneous. Ideas recede before they vanish, as objects recede in space: a sort of consciousness perspective. And this variation is not in the dimension of intensity. But this observable waxing and waning of ideas may be otherwise interpreted than as grades of consciousness. On the basis of a psychological atomism (otherwise an inevitable doctrine) this so-called 'clearness' dimension would come down to the thesis that the atomic elements occur in groups of various degrees of organization ; that the most coherently organized groups are the ' clear' or ' vivid' states ( or ideas) ; that the elements, which themselves are either in or not in' consciousness,' enter consciousness unorganized and are there built up into ' clear' states ; and that again these clear states more or less disintegrate before their component elements pass out of consciousness. It has always seemed to me that this view, which is of course not new, squares per-
( 181) -fectly with the phenomena of fringe of consciousness ; and with the intently observed fading of images. In this way 'attention' would be reduced not to the ',attribute of clearness,' but to the process of organization and deorganization of content-atoms. I find nothing in Leibnitz, to whom the doctrine of clearness and obscurity in ideas owes so much, which would oppose this interpretation.
Now if attention is found to be such a process, then our view of behavior not merely allows for, but it predicts the attention process. Any complex form of behavior is, of course, organized out of simpler responses, which do not always slip into the higher form of integration instantaneously. Their more or less gradual organization is the process of attention. One sits down unguardedly in a public waiting-room, and presently one's train of thought is interrupted by ' something,' which changes almost instantly to ' something I am sitting upon.' This already has involved a very different motor attitude from that in force, while one was idly whiling the time away. At this juncture, if one brings the entire faculty of attention to bear on the 'something,' taking care, however,
(182) not to move one's body, for this would bring in a multitude of new peripheral data, I do not think that this ' something' will gain in 'clearness.' It may, however, change to ' extra pressure at a point on the underside of my thigh.' Here, it seems to me, if one still does not move, all the ' attention' possible will not make this pressure 'clearer'; it is such an intensity of pressure, and there it is. Next, this pressure will probably change back to ' something,' and 'something' will change to 'pocketbook,' ' gold ring,' ' sticky piece of candy, ' apple core,' ' soiled handkerchief,'—each involving a new motor attitude ; as one is soon convinced if ' something' happens to change to 'possibly a snake.' If new peripheral data are admitted, of course the search for enhanced 'clearness' in the originally given piece of content is even more complicated and dubious. The commonly alleged cases of increased 'clearness' are cases of augmented sensory data (producing greater specificity of attitude) ; this is flagrantly so in the often-cited transition of an object from peripheral to foveal vision. Here the series may be ' something,' spot, gray spot, yellowgray spot, yellow irregular spot, yellow sort of semicircular thing, yellowish-orange dome-shaped
(183) object, orange dome-shaped bright object with irregularity at top, orange lamp-shade, lighted lamp with orange shade, on table. But this is not increased ' clearness.' Here, as before, the response attitude has steadily changed (and developed). I have tried for years to find a plausible instance of changing ' clearness' or ' vividness' and for evidence of 'levels of attention'; but the search has been in vain.
According to the clearness doctrine, even when a content is built up to greater definition and detail (Leibnitz's 'distinctness') by the addition of new components, the original elements ought presumably to gain in clearness. But the general tendency seems to be, rather, that they actually disappear. A first glance at an unfamiliar object usually yields salient features like color and form; under attentive observation the content develops into a thing of higher interest in which, unless there are special reasons wherefor they remain important, form and color are lost. An archeologist will soon lose (' pay no attention to') the color or mere contour of a new find which he is intently studying. A jeweler would probably remain conscious of the color of a new gem which he is examin-
(184) -ing ; but here it should seem that this color, if it changes at all, does not gain ' clearness,' but a definite nuance; which is a very different matter. Interest, 'Aufgabe' and 'Bewusstseinslage' (which are the psychologist's names for motor set) determine what shall come or go, and how contents shall develop.
But not all psychologists interpret attention in terms of ' clearness.' This latter is an attribute of content, and there is a tendency in several independent quarters to assign to process, or some aspect of process, various phenomena which have been in the past referred to content. The interpretation of attention, not as ' clearness,' but as the organization process of psychic elements (as above described), is a familiar case in point. The ' imageless thought' movement is another. Associationism described thought as the interaction of content units (' ideas '), while this theory describes it as interplay without content. Again the various groups of thinkers who employ the now-familiar clichés of 'act,' ' psychischer Akt,' and ' psychische Funktion' are tending in the same direction; that is, toward emphasizing process of consciousness more than content. Now I should be far from
(185) arguing that there can be interplay without ideas as the basis of it. Such a thing seems to me untrue to fact, and in theory I can understand it no more than I can how there should be motion with nothing to move, or relation with no entities to be related. But I mention this tendency to emphasize process, only in order to point out that however much of it shall turn out to be empirically valid, so much behaviorism will find no trouble in taking care of.[16] For the responding mechanism presents any amount of process; all too much, indeed. For both content and process of cognition the specific response relation has a place.
A further aspect of attention remains unconsidered. This is attention at its lowest or ' unconscious ' stage. Even should attention generally be found to consist not in a clearness attribute, but in degrees of organization of content, there would still remain to be accounted for those facts which so persistently through the history of psychology have kept alive the distinction of conscious and unconscious, the latter being again distinct from
(186) ‘mere cerebration.' This distinction, obscure and disputed and yet invincible as it has been, becomes luminously construed and wholly justified if cognition is identified with the behavior relation. With the establishment of the first specific response, out of the integration of reflexes, there is of course content (of an atomic, elementary order, very possibly). But this content could never be identified with brain, nor with cerebration : for it is that object or aspect of the environment, to which the brain reflexes are adjusted, of which they are now constant functions. What will happen, now, to these elementary objective contents when these primitive specific responses are still further integrated into more elaborate forms of behavior? They will obviously not turn into ' cerebration,' for they are aspects of the environment. Well, what in fact happens, in such a case, to consciousness? When one first learned to walk, the process involved lively consciousness of pressure on the soles, and at different intensities in the two feet; of visible objects which one carefully watched in order to steady oneself, etc., etc. One now walks with head in air and in almost total oblivion of the steadying visual objects and the unfeeling tactual objects
( 187) with sharp corners, the stairs and the inclines, which it was once so wise to keep in view. At first one stepped, and each step was an adventure in itself ; now one walks, or perhaps not consciously even this ; for one may consciously not be walking or running, but catching a train, thinking over a lecture, bracing oneself to do a sharp stroke of business. The walking behavior, although no less behavior and no less involving functional adjustment toward the environment and hence no less involving ' content,' has now been taken up (along with other behavior systems) and made component of a more highly integrated and elaborate form of behavior. This latter it now serves. And the object or objective situation to which the latter is a functional adjustment is almost always more and more remote from the immediate momentary stimuli than are the objects of which the component systems are functions. For the behavior relation all of the environmental aspects to which the organism is in any wise responding are content ; all are 'in consciousness.' But what portion of all this, then, is the ' attentive consciousness,' the upper level of personal awareness? Why, obviously, the upper level consists of that object or
( 188) system of objects to which the upper level of integrated behavior is specifically adjusted. The attentive level of consciousness, that of which the ' self ' is aware, is that most comprehensive environmental field to which the organism has so far attained (by integration) the capacity to respond.[17] The attentive level at any particular moment is the most comprehensive field to which the organism is at that moment specifically responding (of which its behavior is a function). All other aspects of the environment, to which the ancillary and component behavior systems are at the time responding, are ' coconscious,' ' subconscious,' ' unconscious '—as you prefer ; but they are not brain, nor cerebration, nor neurogramme. They are in consciousness, but not in the upper field of attention. In other words, the most highly integrated behavior system that is in action determines the personal level of attention. If I stop ' thinking about' (comprehensively responding to) the forthcoming business engagement to which my legs are now carrying me, I can consciously walk; if I cease this, I can consciously take a single step ; ceasing
(189) this I can consciously merely equilibrate in an erect posture ; ceasing this I become conscious of pressure on the soles of my two feet. The one change in this series has been the steady reduction in the comprehensiveness of my bodily response. The ' stream of consciousness ' is nothing but this selected procession of environmental aspects to which the body's ever-varying motor adjustments are directed.[18]
This explains, as no other view has ever explained, the relation of automatic or habitual to conscious activities. Habitual activities are usually performed below the attentive level, because as soon as any behavior system is organized ('learned') the organism goes on to integrate this, together with others, into some more comprehensive system; and concomitantly the first mentioned system sinks into the field of the coconscious or unconscious. This is the purpose of education, the meaning of development. On the other hand, there seems to be no, even the most simple and habitual, activity that cannot, and, on occasion, is not, performed consciously. What the organism
( 190) shall be aware of depends solely on what it is doing ; and it can do anything which it ever learned to do, whether complex or simple. The remarkable harmony between this view and the facts is brought out if one turns to the other views. One theory, for instance, has it that the cerebral cortex is the 'seat of consciousness,' while habituated unconscious acts are done by the cerebellum and cord. From which it follows that when a motion is first learned (for this appears to be always a conscious process) it is learned by the cerebrum, but thereafter it is performed by the cerebellum and cord (which never learned it). A most plausible conception ! And thereafter, since it can be performed either consciously or unconsciously, a double set of nervous mechanisms is maintained in readiness ! Or again, there is a view that ' consciousness' is comparable to resistance, or heat, developed at neural cell or synapse. Unconsciousness in a process is attained when the neural path is worn so 'smooth' that no appreciable heat is developed.[19] When, then, an act has once become automatic it cannot be performed consciously, unless the organism relearns it
(191) in a new set of nerves. This patently violates the facts.[20]
Lastly, in leaving this view of the attentive level and the coconscious levels, I must drop the hint that it will be found to throw a flood of light on the otherwise Cimmerian darkness that now surrounds 'unconscious sensations,' ' unconscious judgments,' and 'illusions of judgment'; not to mention more modern categories such as ' Aufgabe,' ' Bewusstseinslage,' Freud's upper and lower 'instances,' and double personality with all its allied problems. Nothing could be more inspiriting to a believer in the purely objective psychology, if dejected, than to read in the light of our definition of behavior what Weber, for instance, had to say about ' stellvertretender Verstand,'[21] or again Euler, Helmholtz, Hering, or Mach about 'unconscious judgments'; such vistas of unforced and lucid explanation are here opened out.
Another phenomenon that seems to be more or less universally involved in cognition is feeling, and
( 192) our question is whether the behavior relation makes such a phenomenon intelligible. Here, again, psychology is not very clear as to how the phenomenon is to be described. The early view that feelings are two content elements—pleasantness and unpleasantness—gave way first to the idea that feelings are two opposed attributes of content, making one distinct dimension comparable with intensity (the ' feeling-tone' theory). Then more recently there has been a marked tendency (which was indeed adumbrated much earlier), as in the case of attention, to refer the phenomenon to process rather than to content, because it seems certain that pleasantness is essentially connected with enhanced, unpleasantness with diminished, consciousness and activity. Some degree of avoidance inevitably attends the unpleasant, and so forth ; and on the other hand, it seems impossible to lay hold of any distinct pleasantness or unpleasantness ' content.'[22]
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One thing, which from the behavioristic point of view seems obvious, is that feeling is some modification of response which is determined by factors within the organism. No dependable and direct correspondence between feeling phenomena and the environment appears. This fact was noted extremely early, and has indeed often served as a clinching argument for the subjectivist point of view. But if one considers what the organism is—a vast congeries of microscopic cells, and each one a chemical process which is practically never in exact equilibrium, whose very use, indeed, involves a disturbance of any even relative equilibrium, where, further, the whole is at every moment both absorbing and disbursing energy of several kinds—then it becomes downright unthinkable that in any behavior which such an organism succeeds in evolving, the constant functions which this is of objects in the environment should not be further complicated by variant factors contained in the mechanisms which are maintaining these functions; just as the constant of gravity is complicated by skin friction, wind, and other forces which act on falling bodies. The phenomenon of 'feeling' is predictable from our definition of behavior and a
(194) rudimentary acquaintance with living tissue. Where in the organism the feeling process is to be sought, or in which aspect of neuro-muscular interplay, cannot, I think, be advisedly inquired until the phenomenon has been more exactly described. Meanwhile behaviorism is embarrassed, not by the difficulty of explaining feeling, but by the very wealth of alternative which it finds at its disposal. It can well afford to wait until psychologists get something that at least resembles a scientific description of that which they call 'feeling.' Meanwhile the closer they have come to anything exact, the nearer they have come to the position above outlined. Such a theory as that of Meyer[23] is straight behaviorism.
It is interesting to note that if, according to our definition of behavior, feeling is a complication that the organism as such introduces in the function which behavior is of the environment, we see immediately why feeling is not unrelated to stimulus and why it is closely related to will. Feelings are more or less, but never infallibly, determined by the stimuli. If one gives simultaneously two ' incon-
( 195) -gruous ' stimuli, the organism commonly 'feels unpleasantness,' which is due, if appearances are not deceptive, to the interferences which each stimulus exerts on the response which the other alone would have called forth. Introspectively one says, " Those two things do not harmonize, they conflict," or in observing another organism one says, " Its responses are impeded." Now it is within the organism that these stimuli interfere, and only by reason of the existence and idiosyncrasies of the organism that they do interfere. Thus feeling is a complication of response due to factors within the organism. It is now clear why 'feeling' is not found in the evolutionary series lower than where 'behavior' is found. As the subjectivist is so fond of saying, " None but a ' conscious' creature can feel." 'Tis true.
And again, if feeling is an internally determined modification of the behavior function and this latter, as previously explained, is the will, it is clear enough why feeling and will are bound to be concomitant phenomena. And whatever empirical truth there may be in the 'pleasure-pain theory ' of will will find ample recognition and explanation in this fact. It shows, too, why will is possible
( 196) without feeling, while feeling is not possible without will.[24] And once again, if will is behavior that is function of an object, and feeling is an ex machina 'Nuancirung ' of this function, while the ' content of consciousness' is the outer object to which the behavior function is directed, one sees how a confusion might arise as to whether feeling was a 'Nuancirung' of the motor attitude or of the object of that attitude. That such a confusion is prevalent is shown by James in his essay, " The Place of Affectional Facts in a World of Pure Experience." [25]
We come, lastly, to what is called 'personality' and the behavior relation. I have already pointed out that for behaviorism will is that function which the organism's behavior is of the object. These various functions are of different degrees of integration, and in a well-knit character they have become organized (as fast as each developed) with
( 197) one another into higher forms of behavior, and if this process has not been thwarted by untoward circumstance, they ore at every period of life integrated to date. That is to say, there is at any moment of life some course of action (behavior) which enlists all of the capacities of the organism: this is phrased voluntaristically as ' some interest or aim to which a man devotes all his powers,' to which 'his whole being is consecrated.' This matter of the unthwarted lifelong progress of behavior integration is of profound importance, for it is the transition from behavior to conduct, and to moral conduct. The more integrated behavior is harmonious and consistent behavior toward a larger and more comprehensive situation, toward a bigger section of the universe ; it is lucidity and breadth of purpose. And it is wonderful to observe how with every step in this process the bare scientific description of what the organism does approaches more and more to a description of moral conduct. In short, all of the more embracing behavior formulae (functions) are moral. The behaviorist has not changed his strictly empirical, objective procedure one iota, and he has scientifically observed the evolution of reflex process into morality.
(198) The reader shall illustrate this for himself. Take any instance of wrong conduct as, say, a child's playing with fire, and consider why it is wrong and how must it change to become right. It is wrong simply because it is behavior that does not take into account consequences ; it is not adjusted to enough of the environment ; it will be made right by an enlargement of its scope and reach. This is just what the integration of specific responses effects ; and through it, as I have remarked previously, the immediate stimulus (ever the bugbear of moralists) recedes further and further from view.
The entire psychology of Freud is a discussion of the miscarriages which occur in this lifelong process of integration, their causes and remedies. Freud believes, and seems to have proven, that thwarted integration (called by some 'dissociation ') is responsible for a large part of mental and nervous disease. For Freud's 'wish' is precisely that thing which in my definition of behavior I call 'function'; it is that motor set of the organism which, if opposed by other motor sets, is functional attitude toward the environment, and which, if unopposed, actuates the organism to overt behavior
( 199) which is a constant function of the environment.[26] The evil resulting from thwarted integration is ‘suppression '—where one motor set becomes organically opposed to another, the two are dissociated and the personality is split : whereas the two should have been harmoniously knit together, coöperating to produce behavior which is yet more far-reachingly adapted to the environment. The sane man is the man who (however limited the scope of his behavior) has no such suppression incorporated in him. The wise man must be sane, and must have scope as well.
A further and important conclusion which I believe has not yet been drawn, but which follows necessarily from Freud's behavioristic psychology (for such it is), is that only the sane man is good and only the sane man is free. For the man with suppressions is capable of no act which some part of his own nature does not oppose, and none which this now suppressed part will not probably some day in overt act undo. There is no course of action into which he can throw his whole energy, nothing which he can 'wish' to do which he does
(200) not wish, to some extent and at the same time, not to do. Thus he can never do the 'good' unreservedly, never without secret rebellion ' in his heart.' And such a man is not good. In the same way he is never free, for all that he would do is hindered, and usually, in fact, frustrated, by his own other self. This fact, so brief in the statement, has been copiously illustrated by Freud and is extraordinarily illuminating to one who is trying to observe and to understand human conduct at large. One soon sees that in the most literal sense there is no impediment to man's freedom except a self-contained and internal one. In thus showing that virtue and freedom derive from the same source Freud and behaviorism have empirically confirmed that doctrine of freedom which Socrates and Plato propounded, and which even religion has deemed too exalted for human nature's daily food—the doctrine that only the good man is free.[27]
Such for behaviorism is the personality or the soul. It is the attitude and conduct, idem est, the purposes, of the body. In those happy individuals in whom the daily integration of behavior is suc-
( 201) -cessfully accomplished the soul is a unit and a moral unit. In others in whom the integration has been frustrated the soul is not a unit, but a collection of warring factions seated in one distracted body. Such a creature has not one soul, but many, and misses of morals and of freedom by exactly as much as it has missed of unity, that is, of the progressive integration of its behavior. According to this view the soul is not substantial and not corporeal ; but it is concrete, definite, empirically observable, and in a living body incorporated—a true 'entelechy: With such a doctrine of personality and the soul as this, behaviorism can rest unperturbed while the sad procession of Spirits, GhostSouls,' transcendental' Egos, and what not, passes by and vanishes in its own vapor. For all of these are contentless monads, and they have no windows. In fine, for behaviorism there is one unbroken integration series from reflex action, to behavior, conduct, moral conduct, and the unified soul.
In the first part of this article I expressed the opinion that behaviorists have not fully realized the significance of what they are doing because, while in practice they have discarded it, in theory they still, like most psychologists, adhere to the 'bead
( 202) theory' of causation. Now their opponents, who believe in 'consciousness' and a subjective soulprinciple, are equally addicted to another view of causation, the teleological. This view, however, which indeed does justice to a feature of causation which the bead theory ignores, is equally wide of the truth. The functional view combines and reconciles the two, and accounts for ' teleology.' This is why the behaviorist who, whatever his theory, practices the functional view, finds in his phenomena no residue of unexplained 'teleological' behavior. For brevity I must let a single illustration suffice to show this. Why does a boy go fishing? The bead theory says, because of something in his ' previous state.' The teleological theory says, because of an 'idea of end' in his 'mind' (subjective categories). The functional theory says, because the behavior of the growing organism is so far integrated as to respond specifically to such an environmental object as fish in the pond. It, too, admits that the boy's 'thought' (content) is the fish. But now a mere attitude or motor set could condition the same 'idea of end'—the fish—and it need go no further; so that the 'idea of end' has no causal efficacy whatsoever. This latter is sup-
(203) -plied by that further influx of nervous energy which touches off the motor set and makes it go over into overt behavior. The whole truth of teleology is taken up, and rectified, in that objective reference which behavior as function o f an object provides for. It is to be empirically noted otherwise that the 'idea of end' is totally inefficacious causally, for more often than not it is merely an idée fixe, which indicates the presence of an habitually aimless and irresolute will.
III. CONCLUSION
In the foregoing pages I have offered what I believe to be a somewhat more exact definition of behavior or specific response than any that I have previously met, and have attempted to show that this behavior relation, objective and definite as it is, can lay considerable claim to being the long-sought cognitive relation between 'subject' and object. For my own part I make no doubt that the cognitive relation is this, although my definition of behavior may have to be overhauled and improved in the light of future empirical discoveries. It follows that I believe the future of psychology, human
(204) as well as animal, to lie in the hands of the behaviorists and of those who may decide to join them. I wish to add a word on the pragmatic aspect of the objective movement in psychology and philosophy.
So far as modern philosophy goes it seems to me that the several present-day tendencies to resolve the subjective category of soul-substance into objective relations all take their origin in the contentions of the eighteenth-century materialists. In this the writings of the French and English ideologists, sensationalists, and other empiricists (including such naturalists as Charles Bonnet) have not been without influence. One might even find, for instance, a behaviorist's charter in the following words of Joseph Priestley : " I cannot imagine that a human body, completely organized, and having life, would want sensation and thought. This I suppose to follow, o f course, as much as the circulation of the blood follows respiration."[28]
In the actual present this objective tendency is represented by groups of men whose interests are otherwise so divergent that it may not be amiss to point out their fundamental unanimity of aim.
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There are at least four such groups—the American realists, the English realists, the French and Russian ' objective' psychologists, and the ' behaviorists.' I think that it would not be difficult to persuade the Freudians that they, too, are objectivists —a fifth group. Possibly the Pragmatists would be another. And I should have mentioned Radical Empiricists at the top of the list if I detected the existence of any such group.
The American realists have been so explicitly conscious of their aim to abolish the subjective (' consciousness,' etc.) and to interpret mental phenomena in an objective relational manner, and they have written so often in this very Journal, that I need say nothing further. It would be unjust of me, without very careful study, to attempt to weigh the individual contributions of these realists, but I must say in passing that in the early, very lean and hungry years of American realism yeoman's service was rendered by Professors Woodbridge and Montague. At the present time all of these realists, for their number is no longer merely 'Six,' seem definitely to have escaped the ' egocentric predicament' and to have repudiated the 'subjective, as such.' It seems to me that they
(206) stand in need of a positive theory of cognition, and that they will find this if they will consider the ways of the patient animal-behaviorist. Cognition exists in the animals, and there in its simpler and more analyzable forms.
The English ' realists' are all, so far as I can see, Cartesian dualists of one complexion or another. But they are all, or nearly all, animated by the desire to be released from the bondage of subjectivism. In so far they have a common aim with the American realists, and might find it worth while to examine cognition in its infrahuman forms.
The Russian and French objective psychologists are determined, just as James has urged and as the behaviorist is doing, to abandon the ghost-soul. They are further determined to discover all the phenomena of consciousness in some or other reflex processes. If they succeed, theirs is clearly bound to be a relational theory of consciousness. And they are thus the natural allies of all realists.
The behaviorists themselves are, as I have said, in practice the one great luminary of the psychologic sky. In theory they need, I think, as in this present paper I have tried to outline, an exact definition of what behavior is. They are to-day in
( 207) danger of making the materialist's error, of denying the facts, as well as the theory, of consciousness. Thus Bethe, in his fascinating book " Dürfen wir den Ameisen and Bienen psychische Qualitäten zuschreiben? " [29] describes much of the complex behavior of ants and bees exactly (and in the sense which I have previously commended), but then adds that, since we can explain all these phenomena in terms of reflex process, we have no right to 'impute consciousness' to these little creatures. He fails to see that he has been describing consciousness. This method, pursued, would end by picking out the single reflex components of human behavior, neglecting the equally important relations in which they are organized, and by then concluding that there is no such thing as sensation, perception, or thought. Just as one might accurately describe each wheel of a watch, and then conclude that it is not a timepiece;' time' not being visible in any one of the wheels. But this would be to miss altogether that novelty which arises during the integration of reflex process into behavior. As I have tried to show, behaviorism is neither subjectivism, nor, on the other hand, is it materialism (in
(208) the accepted sense of that term—the sense, that is, in which the facts of consciousness are slurred over or even repudiated outright).
As to the others, it is my belief that both the Freudians and the pragmatists will find a number of baffling points in their own systems explained, and these systems extended and fortified, if they will consider whether cognition for them is not essentially contained within the behavior relation.[30] That this is true for Freudianism I shall attempt to demonstrate in the near future.
In fine, it should seem that a fundamental unity of purpose animates the investigators of these several groups, although they approach the question of cognition from very different directions. Will it not be a source of strength for all if they can manage to keep a sympathetic eye on the methods and the discoveries of one another?
