PSYCHOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE 

 PSYCHOLOGY* 



IT 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 



