ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapter, I treated “behavior” as though its meaning were obvious. This is certainly not the case. It is often used as a synonym of activity and is applied to inanimate objects as well as to the activities of living beings; for instance, we may talk of the behavior of molecules or of the planets. When applied to the actions of living beings, the term is sometimes used to include, and sometimes to exclude, tropisms and reflexes. There are psychologists who define their discipline as the science of behavior and who experience no inconsistency when they conduct experiments in which the dependent variables are changes in blood or brain-tissue chemistry. I am inclined to doubt, however, that any psychologist would consider it within the bounds of psychological usage to apply the term to any kind of change in blood or brain-tissue chemistry, regardless of the instigating conditions. Or to the case of an organism caught in the act of falling, not, that is, when the act is unintentional. But how and why does one draw the line? Why is falling less a behavior than a knee jerk? Why, if at all, is a seminal ejaculation less a behavior than a passionate declaration of love? The penetration of a sperm into an ovum less than the demonstration of a mathematical theorem? The positioning of iron filings around a magnet less than playing a chess game or planning a military campaign? The digestion of one’s food less than going to work to earn a livelihood?
