TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 659 
composed of nitrogen or oxygen or such other gas mixtures as are free from 
carbonic acid. Everything points to the gaseous exchange during the condition 
of apnoea being due to physical causes, namely, differences of pressure between 
the gases of the alveolar air and those in the pulmonary blood. 
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. 
Joint Discussion with Section M on Animal Nutrition.—See p. 742. 
The following Papers were then read :— 
1. Dynamic Centres in their relation to Life, and particularly to 
Karyokinesis. By Professor Lepuc. 
2. The Relationship of the Adrenal Glands to the Sugar Content of the 
Blood. By Professor J. J. R. Macieop. 
3. Physical Chemistry of Muscle Plasma. By Professor Fru, Borazzz. 
4. The General Condition of the Spinal Vaso-motor Paths in Spinal 
Shock. By Professor F. H. Pike. 
5. The Role of Memory in Animal Behaviour. 
By J. L. McIntyre, M.A., D.Sc. 
The question of the function of memory in animal behaviour is a crucial one 
in regard to the part played by mind and consciousness generally in animals. 
The existence of mental processes cannot be verified except by observations or 
experiments showing the influence of past experience upon present action. 
Similarly, the more complex forms of consciousness are only inferred from the 
-more intricate, more rapid, or more extended processes of memory which the 
actions seem to imply. 
It has been urged that such observations, in the case of animals, neither do 
nor can prove anything more than ‘organic memory,’ by which is meant, for 
example, the formation, persistence, and possible re-excitation of connections in 
the nerve-centres or analogous parts of the organism; that the use of terms 
implying consciousness of any kind in the explanation of animal behaviour is 
unscientific ; that the existence of conscious processes in animals is an unverifiable 
and also an unnecessary hypothesis; that since known physical and chemical 
causes are sufficient to account for the phenomena in question, the use of psycho- 
logical terms and the making of psychological conclusions is. mere superstition, 
‘and comparative psychology must be.denied the right ‘to call itself a science.’ 
_. This paper is.an attempt to define and illustrate, with regard to the question 
_of memory, the point of view of Comparative Psychology. As a biological science 
it is concerned primarily with animal behaviour, and the description of such 
behaviour in physical terms—.e., in terms_of organism, stimuli, and reactions 
—is an essential preliminary. But its special, problem is the evolution of mind— 
_the direction, the stages, and the conditions on which the transition from one 
stage of the evolution to another depends. Wherever animal behaviour is not a 
rigid, fixed, and uniform response to definite stimuli from the environment, 
as in tropisms and im reflex actions of the ‘ absolute ’ type, but is modifiable by 
the individual on the ground of, or in reference to, previous experience—there 
we must assume, if not a stage, at least a condition of the evolution of memory. 
‘Memory,’ however, is a term that ‘covers several processes usually distinguished 
vu 2 
