Thus we may take it as an observed fact that, so far as overt behaviour
is concerned, there are two objections to the type of theory with
which we began, when considered as covering the whole field. The first
objection is that in cases of a certain kind, the solution appears
sooner than it should according to the doctrine of chances; the second
is that it appears as a whole, _i.e._ that the animal, after a period
of quiescence, suddenly goes through the right series of actions
smoothly, and without hesitation.
Where human beings are concerned, it is difficult to obtain such
good data as in the case of animals. Human mothers will not allow
their children to be starved, and then shut up in a room containing
a banana which can only be reached by putting a chair on the table
and a footstool on the chair, and then climbing up without breaking
any bones. Nor will they permit them to be put into the middle of a
Hampton Court maze, with their dinner getting cold outside. Perhaps
in time the State will perform these experiments with the children of
political prisoners, but as yet, perhaps fortunately, the authorities
are not sufficiently interested in science. One can observe, however,
that human learning seems to be of both sorts, namely that described
by Watson and that described by Köhler. I am persuaded that speech is
learnt by the Watsonian method, so long as it is confined to single
words: often the trial and error, in later stages, proceeds _sotto
voce_, but it takes place overtly at first, and in some children until
their speech is quite correct. The speaking of sentences, however, is
already more difficult to explain without bringing in the apprehension
of wholes which is the thing upon which _Gestaltpsychologie_
lays stress. In the later stages of learning, the sort of sudden
illumination which came to Köhler’s chimpanzees is a phenomenon with
which every serious student must be familiar. One day, after a period
of groping bewilderment, the schoolboy knows what algebra is all
about. In writing a book, my own experience--which I know is fairly
common, though by no means universal--is that for a time I fumble and
hesitate, and then suddenly I see the book as a whole, and have only
to write it down as if I were copying a completed manuscript.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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