612 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



DISCUSSION. 



The President intimated that the subject was open for discussion. 

 Some of the members suggested that it would be necessary to adjourn 

 the meeting, since the discussion was likely to occupy a great deal of 

 time. Others suggested that the various scientific points in the paper 

 should be taken in detail. One member proposed that the subject of 

 pigmentation of the skin might be taken up first. After some general 

 conversation, Dr. Ramsay Smith said : Mr. President, will you allow 

 me to open the discussion on this subject ? 



It has been most refreshing to listen to this paper. It takes us 

 back to the beginnings of science — back, even farther, to the beginning 

 of the study of logic and to the mental recreations of the early philoso- 

 phers and logicians. We remember, when following their footsteps, 

 the ratiocination that proved that there is no such thing as motion : 

 " A thing cannot move where it is : a thing cannot move where it is 

 not : but it must move either where it is or where it is not ; therefore 

 it cannot move at all." The ancients said, " Solvitur ambulando " — so 

 we walked, moved about, under the firm intellectual conviction, all 

 the while, that motion was impossible. 



The paper reminds us, too, of the beginnings of scientific societies, 

 and the problem propounded to the Royal Society by King Charles : 

 " Why is it that, if a living fish is placed in water, the weight of 

 the whole is not increased, whereas if a dead fish be so placed the 

 weight of the whole is increased by an amount equal to the weight of the 

 fish ? " After prolonged discussion, someone was sufficiently disloyal 

 to suggest that the statement should be tested by experiment. You 

 know the result. The members of the society found that His Majesty 

 was amusing himself ; in vulgar language " the King was having the 

 loan of them." 



I remember how Professor Guthrie Tait used to devote five minutes 

 at the beginning of the lecture hour to answering students' questions 

 submitted to him in writing. Sometimes he would read a question : 

 " How do you explain so-and-so 1 " and he would reply, with a smile, 

 " Gentlemen, I deny the fact." He impressed upon us that in science 

 it was necessary to be clear about the existence of the fact before 

 attempting any scientific explanation of it. 



These historical references are very pertinent to the present subject. 

 We have been listening to a large number of very cogent and con- 

 clusive, and, apparently, scientific reasons why white men cannot live 

 and work in the tropics. Recently I read Lord Roberts' " Forty-one 

 Years in India." I find to-day that the book must be removed from 

 the class of biography to the shelf reserved for the literature of the 

 imagination. Perhaps Mr. Macfie may think that this is straining 

 his thesis to the breaking point. But, if he does not mean this with 

 individuals, he does lead us to believe he means it with reference to 

 races. We have been taught that the Spanish in the Philippines have 

 been in possession for 300 years, and that the Dutch in Java and Africa 

 have existed for several hundred years, and have thriven. We have 



