25 



a very fair portion' of the functions wliicli were then liinted at as 

 being within its province and powers." 



He then reviewed in detail the proceedings of the year. 

 Observing that "no Eeports on the progress of Science had yet 

 been given," he proceeded : — 



" The science of Anthropology, as a section of the larger science 

 of Biology, has, of late years, been claiming more and more of 

 pubhc attention, and has even been acknowledged by His Holiness 

 the Pope to be the greatest of all the philosophical sciences. It is 

 true that Leo XHI proceeds, in his own inimitable manner, to 

 declare that nothing has been discovered in Anthropology since 

 St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, and that the work of that father on man 

 refutes all the errors of the ancient philosophers and even anticipates 

 and refutes also the eiTors of aU the moderns. A claim of mere 

 infalUbility is a trifle to this, for the knowledge beforehand of all 

 possible errors into which poor humanity may fall is ahaost a claim 

 of omniscience. I am bound to confess, with shame, that not 

 having ever drawn my knowledge of the science from this fountain- 

 head of it. I cannot say whether the Pope's claim on behalf of 

 St. Thomas of Aquinum is well or ill founded, for I do not share 

 that author's faculty of being able to refute what I have never read. 

 '•I content myself, therefore, with reference to more modern 

 authorities, and I find that Professor AUman, President for the year 

 of the British Association, has foUowed the example set him by his 

 predecessors— Allen Thomson, Andrews, TyndaU, Cai-penter, and 

 Huxley, by taking the present state of Biological Science as the 

 subject of his Address. It was only natural that so distinguished 

 a biologist should have done so ; but the circumstance that in doing 

 so he follows, in so short a period of years, so many other illustrious 

 students of the science, is ample evidence of the hold it has gained 

 on the public mind. It is only thirteen years since the section of 

 Biology was constituted, with Anthropology as one of its depart- 

 ments, and it has already furnished six Presidents to the entire 

 Association. Each of the six has asserted most fearlessly his 

 convection as to the truth of recent discoveries, and the conclusions 

 to which they lead him. 



" The subject which Professor AUman treated was the physical 

 basis of hfe, which has been shown to be the same in animals and 



