150 president's address — SECTION G. 



we find the traces of a lower still. This is no fanciful inter- 

 pretation of signs which may have another meaning', or 

 indeed no meaning at all. The marks are as significant and 

 as easily read as are the signs of his calling on the clothes 

 and person of the miner when he comes up from his work : 

 anyone who sees him can tell what his calUng is, but those 

 who are versed in such matters can point out the very locality 

 where he has been at work. Nations carry with them shreds 

 and patches of their left-off clothing, each of which, like the 

 hanging sleeve of the hussar's jacket, or the martial buttons 

 on the back of a peaceful citizen's coat, has a definite 

 historical meaning for us if we can only read it. 



In these investigations two things mainly are required — 

 first, a patient continuance in the collecting of facts ; and, 

 secondly, the faculty of seeing in them what is seen by the 

 natives themselves. We must ever remember that our mind- 

 world is very different from theirs. It is not filled with the 

 same images ; it is not governed by the same laws. It is to 

 theirs as the England of the present day is to the England 

 of who shall say how many ages ago.'* The climate, the 

 coast line, the watersheds, the flora, the fauna — in short, 

 nearly all the aspects of nature — are changed. It is to all 

 intents and purposes another land. As to the former of 

 these two requisites, one's natural tendency, especially in the 

 beginning of the work, is to form a theory as soon as one has 

 got hold of a fact ; and, as to the latter, we are too apt to 

 look at the facts in savagery fi-oni the mental standpoint of 

 the civilised man. Both of these are extremely mischievous. 

 They lead investigators into fatal mistakes, and bring upon 

 them much painful experience ; for the pang attending the 

 extraction of an aching double tooth is sweetest bliss when 

 compared with the tearing up by the roots of a cherished 

 theory. I speak feelingly here, because I can hold myself 

 up as an awful warning against theory-making. To take 

 one instance only. In Kamilaroi and Kurnai, the joint 

 work of Mr. A. W. Howitt* and myself, there is a long 

 chapter containing a most beautiful theory of the Kurnai 

 system, which I worked out with infinite pains. It accounts 

 for that system so completely and so satisfactorily that the 



* It is only bare justico to Mr. Howitt to note that nearly all the labour 

 of collecting the Australian facts fell to his sihare, and that he did this work 

 after tho manner in which he does all other work undertaken by him. No 

 higher jiraise could possibly be expressed. 



