718 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 123. 



PSYCHOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE PSY- 

 CHOLOGY* 



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 con- 

 nected with the work of this Faculty joined 

 the Association and entered into the new 

 project with enthusiasm. It was early de- 

 cided that only material obtained either at 

 first hand or from the most reliable sources 

 should be bro^^ght 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 atten- 

 tion it may be fairly claimed that the facts 

 upon which they have been based were be- 

 yond 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 ow- 

 ing to the imperfection of our grasp of 

 many-sided truth, a fact is always a fact. 

 The patient collection of facts, so well illus- 

 trated by the illustrious Darwin, when 

 theorizing without very great regard to 

 them was so tempting in framing explana- 

 tions of organic nature, is a work that the 

 world long undervalued and the importance 

 of which it is to be feared all psychologists 

 at the present day do not adequately ap- 

 preciate. 



*Aii address delivered to the Association for the 

 study of Comparative Psychology in Montreal, No- 

 vember 2, 1896. 



In this, at all events, our unpretentious 

 Association may claim to have trodden in 

 the safe path. At the end of our first 

 decade of existence it may be profitable to 

 review what has been accomplished. It 

 could scarcely be expected that the mem- 

 bers of this Association, being for the most 

 part undergraduates, whose time is largely 

 taken up with professional studies, should 

 be able to make elaborate original research- 

 es worthy of publication. From the first, 

 however, our proceedings have been given 

 to the public in condensed form by the local 

 press, and evidence has been abundant on 

 every hand that one of the results has been 

 an altered attitude of mind on the part of 

 many intelligent persons in this city towards 

 the animal world about us, notably our 

 domestic species. This is not a work to be 

 despised, for the welfare of our fellow crea- 

 tures lower in the scale is largely dependent 

 on the views we entertain of their psychic 

 nature. 



It is surely not to be supposed that such 

 studies as have engaged the members of 

 our Association are without a value of a 

 professional kind; for in the handling of 

 sick animals, in diagnosing their exact con- 

 dition, in appreciating their sensations and 

 generally in understanding their entire na- 

 ture, the man who observes and reflects 

 on such things must be more competent as 

 a veterinarian, other things being equal, 

 and certainly a more agreeable visitor to 

 both patients and clients. 



But it is difiicult, in my opinion, to over- 

 estimate the good to the individual who in 

 the right spirit studies animals. A frame 

 of mind is established which, even when one 

 exaggerates animal intelligence, is rarely 

 practically harmful — often the reverse — 

 and nearly always begets sympathy and 

 modesty. 



Psychology has passed through great 

 changes, during even the last decade. Now 

 almost every college in America of much 



