Tregbar. — Inaugural Address. 617 



liberty takes the form of filling the asylums with lunatics or 

 the hospitals with patients. 



The correlation of action of mind and body brings to us 

 the consideration of the position held by will and tempera- 

 ment on the conditions of civilised life. If the study of history 

 has its most practical application in teaching us how to avoid 

 the pitfalls into which have fallen the men and women who 

 preceded us upon the world's stage, surely also the most 

 practical lesson to be inculcated by the study of anthropology 

 is the avoidance of evils that in the customs of savages stare 

 at us open-eyed. Are these same evils rampant among us 

 under other names, and disguised under thin veneers of civili- 

 sation and culture ? In many cases they undoubtedly are, 

 and, although it would take far too long even to attempt to 

 show the hundredth part of the misery that arises from the 

 ages-old mistakes that we hug to our bosoms under new 

 names, there is one at least to which I may call your atten- 

 tion, and that is to the little heed that is given to the training 

 of the will in benign directions, and to the higher discipline 

 of the feelings. It is the tendency of modern life, with its 

 intense efforts of struggle and competition, to exalt in the 

 educated man of the nineteenth century those qualities which 

 in savage life brings the individual to the front, and converts 

 the energetic and resourceful member of a barbarous tribe 

 into the successful war-chief. Nay, more, it exalts those base 

 qualities in man which in the lower stages of his evolution as 

 an animal were his graceful and noble attributes, but which 

 should be left behind him on his ascent from among the lower 

 creatures, for the exertion of such faculties may cause him to 

 become the enemy of his kind and the foe of all that bear the 

 impress of the higher nature. 



Unflinching courage, restless energy, unsparing disregard 

 for others that cannot serve his turn, acquisitiveness, lust of 

 power : these are the qualities that in the modern industrial 

 world, as in the realm of savage club-law, command not only 

 the world's rewards but the world's admiration. Some of 

 these qualities, such as courage and energy, are always 

 worthy of respect, worthy now as they were in the old forest 

 days when man shared them with the ape and tiger ; but if 

 with these are held up other less worthy qualities — base am- 

 bitions, lust of gold, greed of power, &c. — it becomes a matter 

 of doubt whether such mental possessions may^not be found 

 to be false lights, leading to ultimate disaster. Let us put 

 aside the social question that presses upon us at every turn- 

 ing of the path, and let us consider only the physical effect 

 upon the millions who must form the crowd from which suc- 

 cessful individuals detach themselves. If we think what it 

 must be to live in a continual high strain, we must acknow- 



