Study of animals has long been popular with experimental psychologists, but they must not be misevaluated. Pavlov’s work was interesting: it proved dogs will be dogs. Now by light of these new observations and deductions it proved more than Pavlov knew. It proved men weren’t dogs. Must be an answer here somewhere. Let’s see. I’ve trained a lot of dogs. I’ve also trained a lot of kids. Once I had a theory that if you trained a kid as patiently as you trained a dog, then you would have an obedient kid. Didn’t work. Hmmm. That’s right. It didn’t work. The more calmly and patiently one tried to make that kid into a well-trained dog– ”Come here” and he’d run away–hmmm. Must be some difference between kids and dogs. Well, what do dogs have that kids don’t have. Mentally, probably nothing. But what do kids have that dogs don’t have. A good analytical mind!1
Notes
- Hubbard. (1950). Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science (2007 ed., pp. 36-37). Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc. ↩