PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. LVIl 



the rigours of European winters, and the hardships of trench life, 

 he gallantly offered his services to his country. The discoverer of 

 the location of the South Magnetic Pole did equally great work 

 on the Western Front as he did in the Antarctic, and we are proud 

 and thankful to have him safely iback amongst us, and we greet 

 him as the doyen and leader of scientific work and workers in 

 Australasia. 



In a Presidential address for an Association such as this, which 

 represents all the various branches of science, one has the choice 

 of two methods — either to attempt a general survey of science 

 and scientific develoj^ments since the last meeting, or to confine 

 one's self to some special branch with which the writer may be 

 more especially acquainted. In the early days of the parent Asso- 

 ciation in Great Britain, when science as we know it now was 

 more or less in its infancy, it Avas practically possible for men 

 like Huxley, Tyndall, Faraday, and Hooker to have a. general all- 

 round grasp of the various branches, both of physical and natural 

 science. The rapid advancement of scientific investigation soon 

 put an end to such universality of scientific knowledge, and now it 

 is not possible for any worker to have a thorough and intimate 

 acquaintance with mere than one branch of science, or even one 

 part of this. 



In the Presidential addresses delivered before the various sections 

 you will hear from those who are competent to tell us something 

 of what has been done during recent years in the different sciences 

 that they represent. 



I therefore propose to take as the subject of my address a 

 very restricted one, though of peculiar interest from an Australian 

 point of view, that may be said to lie almost on the border line 

 of science and the historical side of literature. 



Some 200 years ago the well-known line was written, " The 

 proper study of mankind is man," but it was only at a very much 

 later date that mankind hegan to study the more or less 

 primitive man, as revealed by various savage, harbaric, and semi- 

 civilized peoples. In fact, it is not very long ago since most people 

 held the self-gratifying opinion that the so-called lower races 

 were a different species of human beings to themselves, and 

 objected strongly to being told that their far-away ancestors were 

 on much the same physical and cultural level as the savages of 

 to-day, and that to understand the evolution of man and the 

 history of mankind as culminating in themselves it was necessary 

 to study the structure, beliefs, and customs of their savage 

 ancestors. Not only this, but they were told that it was equally 

 necessary, though naturally it upset the equanimity of the anthro- 

 pocentri" grandparents, and even parents of ourselves, to study 

 the relationshi]> of the same far-away ancestors to still lower and 

 less human-like types of animals. 



