PSYCHOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE 
PSY CHOLOGY.* 
Ir is now more than ten years since I suggested to a 
few of the students of this Faculty of Comparative 
Medicine that it might be interesting and profitable to 
band together for the study of the psychic nature of 
animals, particularly those animals with which we are 
brought into daily contact. 
In December 1885, at a meeting called to consider 
the subject, it was unanimously decided that a Society 
should be formed to study Animal Intelligence as best it 
could. Practically all the students, and those teachers 
more immediately connected with the work of this 
Faculty, joined the Association and entered into the new 
project with enthusiasm. It was early decided that 
only material obtained either at first hand, or from the 
most reliable sources, should be brought before the 
Association, and that principle, the wisdom of which 
will not be questioned, has been acted upon throughout. 
Whatever the value of the papers and discussions 
which have engaged our attention, it may be fairly 
claimed that the facts upon which they have been 
based were beyond question. The first essential in any 
student of nature is a strong desire to know the truth, 
and, therefore, a great respect for exact observation at 
the outset. While theories change—and this is inevitable 
owing to the imperfection of our grasp of many-sided 
truth—a fact is always a fact. The patient collection of 
facts, so well illustrated by the illustrious Darwin, when 
* An Address delivered to the Association for the Study of Com- 
parative Psychology in Montreal, 1896. 
46 
