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SOME RELATIONSHIPS OF ECONOMIC BIOLOGYi 



By sir DAVID PRAIN, C.M.G., C.I.E., LL.D., F.R.S. 



BEING THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS DELIVERED 

 TO THE ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC BIOLOGISTS 

 AT THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, FEBRUARY 18, 



1921 



I HAVE to thank you for the opportunity of presiding over our deUbera- 

 tions during the past year. Your consideration and the kindness of my 

 colleagues on Council have made the privilege a pleasure. That pleasure 

 would have remained unmixed but for a reminder that to-day is the 

 occasion for an annual address. 



Our Secretary in making this intimation has kindly added that 

 although such addresses usually deal with the wider issues of biology 

 there is no estabhshed precedent which need be followed. Grateful for 

 this assurance I will restrict my remarks to some outhne of the varying 

 relationships which our work as economic biologists has borne to the 

 activities by which natural knowledge is gained. 



It is convenient to consider separately the philosophical relationship 

 between economic and natural study, and the development of that 

 practical relationship familiar to those whose personal recollections go 

 a generation back. 



As economic work antedates philosophical study it would seem 

 proper to consider the practical relationship first. But it is more con- 

 venient to reverse this order. In this country one philosophical rela- 

 tionship between economic and natural study was clearly defined by 

 the middle of the seventeenth century, and the evolution of that con- 

 ception helps us to understand why efiect was not given to it till our 

 own day. 



Our Association is concerned with Economic Biology. Economic 

 Biology is conditioned as other natural studies are. Its business is to 

 deal with natural things. These assort themselves into two groups. 

 Regarding most things all w^e can say is that they exist and that 

 observation and experiment have revealed some of their effects. Only 



1 A granl in aid of publication has been received for this communication. 



