ABSTRACT
The study of conditioning first arose from studies in physiology. In the course of his research into the function of the digestive glands, Pavlov became interested in so-called psychic secretion. Following the general tendency at that time, he refused to consider it from a psychological (i.e. subjective) standpoint. Later, seeing the weakness of objective psychology, which was in its infancy, he maintained that 'the physiologist ought to keep to his own route' and so he continued to present his findings and his general ideas as a 'theory of higher nervous activity'.
