ABSTRACT
Nobody loves a fairy when she is forty; that is hard luck on fairies of an uncertain age. But nobody loves a behaviourist at any time; that seems a trifle unjust, and one may inquire why this should be so. Metaphysical behaviourism is really little but a disguise for a very ancient philosophical belief, namely old-fashioned materialism. The natural affinity between behaviourism and materialism is brought out very clearly in the early history of the former, particularly in France which, although this is not always realized, provided the cradle out of which sprang many of the fundamental ideas which now go to make up modern behaviourism. Psychology before Watson had largely been concerned with mental events, with introspective accounts of the furniture of the mind, etc. Introspection was the main method, and many very able and highly sophisticated people tried to use it in their search for a scientific psychology.
