ADDRESS BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 267 



AN ADDRESS GIVEN BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF AN- 

 THROPOLOGY OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1878. 



By T. H. HUXLEY. 



[Huxley's address at the Dublin meeting of the British Association gives 

 an admirable account of the condition of anthropological science twenty- 

 two years ago. It has not been republished in the 'Collected Essays,' 

 but like everything that Huxley wrote it is worth reading at the present 

 time.] 



WHEN I undertook, with the greatest possible pleasure, to act as 

 a lieutenant of my friend, the president of this section, I 

 steadfastly purposed to confine myself to the modest and useful duties 

 of that position. For reasons, with which it is not worth while to 

 trouble you, I did not propose to follow the custom which has grown up 

 in the Association of delivering an address upon the occasion of taking 

 the chair of a section or department. In clear memory of the admir- 

 able addresses which you have had the privilege of hearing from Pro- 

 fessor Flower, and just now from Dr. McDonnell, I can not doubt that 

 that practice is a very good one; though I would venture to say, to use 

 a term of philosophy, that it looks very much better from an objective 

 than from a subjective point of view. But I found that my resolution, 

 like a great many good resolutions that I have made in the course of 

 my life, came to very little, and that it was thought desirable that I 

 should address you in some way. But I must beg of you to understand 

 that this is no formal address. I have simply announced it as a few 

 introductory remarks, and I must ask you to forgive whatever of 

 crudity and imperfection there may be in the mode of expression of 

 what I have to say, although naturally I shall do my best to take care 

 that there is neither crudity nor inaccuracy in the substance of it. 

 It has occurred to me that I might address myself to a point in con- 

 nection with the business of this department which forces itself more 

 or less upon the attention of everybody, and which, unless the bellicose 

 instincts of human nature are less marked on this side of St. George's 

 Channel than on the other, may possibly have something to do with the 

 large audiences we are always accustomed to see in the anthropological 

 department. In the geological section I have no doubt it will be 

 pointed out to you, or, at any rate, such knowledge may crop up in- 

 cidentally, that there are on the earth's surface what are called loci 

 of disturbance, where, for long ages, cataclysms and outbursts of lava 

 and the like take place. Then everything subsides into quietude; 



