PROCEEDIT^GS 



OF THE 



LINNEAN SOCIPZTY^,-^ 



OF 



NEW SOUTH ^V\^ALES. 



WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29th. 1916. 



The Forty-first Anniial General Meeting, and the Or(Uiiar|^^l 

 Monthly Meeting, were held in the Linnean Hall, Ithaca Road, 

 Elizabeth Bay, on Wednesday evening, March 29th, 1916. 



ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. 



Mr. A. G. Hamilton, President, in the Chair. 

 The Minutes of the preceding Annual General Meeting (March 

 31st, 1915) were read and confirmed. 



The President delivered the Annual Address. 



PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 

 Bacon's familiar essay on "Adversity" concludes with this in- 

 contestable aphorism : "For pi'osperity doth best discover vice; 

 but adversity doth best discover virtue." Twenty months ago, 

 a lengthy period of unprecedented, mateinal world-prosperity, 

 largely due to Man's increased control of Nature, suddenly ended 

 in discovering the calamitous condition of things which still con- 

 fronts the world — Civilisation attacked from within, divided 

 against itself, the solidarity of mankind rent in twain, Inter- 

 nationalism bankrupt. The case has been clearly and simply 

 stated in a recent article by Emeritus Professor G. T. Ladd, of 

 Yale University, in these words — "To-day, the German mind is 

 at wide variance, is at desperate odds, with the human mind. It 

 appears as either superhuman or below the human. It is 

 not in accord with the standards supplied by the great majority of 



