176 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



difficult people with such an easy manner. Bucke is a man who enjoys 

 being busy — likes to do things — is swift of execution — lucid, sure, 

 decisive. Doctors are not in the main comfortable creatures to have 

 around, but Bucke is helpful, confident, optimistic — has a way of 

 buoying you up."^ 



On the establishment of a jMedical Faculty in the Western Uni- 

 versity, in 1882, Dr. Buôke was appointed Professor of Mental and 

 Nervous Diseases. His teaching we are assured was invariably satis- 

 factory to both faculty and students. 



In 1891 the Medical Faculty of McGill University paid him tlie 

 high compliment of inviting him to deliver the opening lecture for the 

 year. Its ability and forcefulness were the subject of Avide comment 

 and commendation. 



Six years later, he was chosen President of the Psychological 

 Section of the Britisb Medical Association on the occasion of its meet- 

 ing at j\Iontreal. This was, perhaps, the most distinguished honour 

 that could be bestowed upon a specialist in the branch of science to 

 which he had devoted the best part of his life. It was followed in 

 1898 by his election to the Presidency of the American Medico-Psycho- 

 logical Association. 



19. 



The life of a physician in good practice in a small town is exacting 

 in its demands, and leaves little time for literary culture. The more 

 successful he is as a practitioner, the rarer necessarily are his oppor- 

 tunities for keeping up an adequate acquaintance with the great masters 

 of the world of letters or with the current thought of the time. To 

 do so presupposes the literar}' instinct and training. It calls for an 

 intellectual equipment beyond the ordinary, careful economy of time, 

 and great mental energy and resolution. Dr. Bucke was fortunate 

 in possessing the instinct, the character and the training. 



Reference has already been made to books read by him in his 

 childhood and youth. As already stated, his bent for scientific and 

 philosophical study manifested itself at an early age. 



Buckle, Darwin and Tyndall he read while a medical student. 

 In Paris he had become acquainted with Auguste Comte's " Cours de 

 Philosophie Positive." Littré's books upon Comte and the writings 

 of other positivists deepened the impression produced by the books 

 njentioned. Herbert Spencer's works were perused with avidity. On 

 the scientific and philosophical side, these, and especially Comte's works, 



^ " With Walt Whitman in Camden," by Horace Traubel. Boston, 1906, 

 page 448. 



