50 Froceedings. 



ical structure of the body rather than with the nature and abilities of the mind. But 

 the science which inquires into all the products and works of our own si)ecies, which 

 shows what man has been doing in all ages and under all conditions, which reveals his 

 mind, his thoughts, his tastes, his feelings — such a science touches us more closely than 

 any other. By this science, of which history forms a part, we trace the nature of man. 

 age after age — his capacities, his abilities ; we learn where he succeeds, where he fails. 

 and what his possibilities may be." 



From another point of view the subject should be considered — it gives a more truly 

 " liberal education " than any other subject, as at present taught. A complete archae- 

 ological training would require a full knowledge of history and art, a fair use of languages, 

 and a working familiarity with many sciences. The one-sided growth of modern training 

 which produces a B.A. who knows nothing of natural science, or else a B.Sc. who knows 

 nothing of human nature, is assuredly not the ideal for a reasonable man. Archaeology — 

 the knowledge of how man has acquired his present position and powers — is one of the 

 widest studies, best fitted to open the mind, and to produce that type of wide interest 

 and toleration which is the highest result of education. 



The study of the archaeology of New Zealand is for us and for our children, and, 

 like the history of any other land, it has a fascination. The love of past times, the craving 

 for that which is gone, is one of the most obscure instincts which appears to be brought 

 forwai'd by the wider growth of interests of the mind. It takes many forms : it 

 appeals to the intellect, to the curiosity, to the affections, yet it is really a single instinct, 

 and one which, from its strength, must spring from a primal cause. The sense of loss 

 touches us at every sunset, and in anticipation tinges all the afternoon with the sense 

 of lengthening shadows. Even the things that seem most common, least worthy, when 

 in use, all gain some being as time passes. Each little thing that carelessly we value 

 not at first, grows rich with store of years. Still more do places gain their held upon us 

 unheeded at the time. A store of memories of days spent amid strong associations 

 that stirred and built the mind are the truest riches in all after-life. What underlies 

 all this fascination of the past ? What is it that thus moves men 



In thinking of the days that are no more ? 



It is the same great attraction, whether it be a personal memory, or the being of oiir 

 forefathers, or a page strong with ])ast life in some history, or the handling of the 

 drinking-bowls of the oldest kings of the earth as they came from the dust of Egypt. 

 It is but one sense in varied forms. It is the love of life. In primal seas first sprang 

 that love of life — of preservation, of continuity of life. Even long before man it led 

 to the moral growth of self-sacrifice, of affection, of social union. In man it led the stoic 

 on to the brotherhood of all men. and the res]5onsibility of man for man. It lias led the 

 modern forward to the brotherhood of all existing life, the responsibility for the animal as 

 well as the man. It now leads us on to clinging to the life of our ancestors, their being 

 and their natures, and beyond that to the fascination of all history, as being the continuity 

 of life, the ever-shifting changes of the one gi'eat chain which we see around us at its 

 present stage, and of wliich we form part. The man who knows and dwells in historj' 

 adds a new dimension of his existence : he no longer lives in the one plane of present 

 ways and thoughts ; be lives in the whole space of life — past, present, and dimly future. 

 He sees the present narrow line of existence, momentarily fluctuating, as one stage, 

 like innumerable other stages that have each been the all-important present to the short- 

 sighted people of their owni day. He values the present as the most comjilete age of history 

 for study, as explaining the past. He values the past as the long continuity that has 

 brought about the result of the ]>resent, in which he happens to breathe. He lives in 

 all time ; the ages are bis ; all live alike, to him ; the present is not more real than the 

 past, any more than the room in which he sits is more real than the rest of the world. 

 Cleaving to that one stream of life which branch by branch has flowed through so many 

 channels in all the ages, and still runs on into the future, he can give account of the 

 fascination of history. 



Papers. — 1. " Notes on New Zealand Lepidoptera,'^ by E. Meyrick. 

 F.R.S. ; communicated by G. V. Hudson. 



2. " Oceanic Comparatives," by the Rev. C. E. Fox ; communicated by 

 A. Hamilton. 



3. " On the Leaf-anatomy of Olearia lacunosa,^^ by T. L. Lancaster 

 communicated by Professor H. B. Kirk. 



i. " On the Anatomy of Haliotis iris" by F. G. A. Stuckey, M.A. 



