September 23, 1909] 



NA TURE 



379 



vessels of the stem, is not supported by others. One hypo- 

 thesis is that the disease is due to degeneration of the par- 

 ticular variety attaclced, another that manure and soil may 

 have a disturbing influence on tlie metabolism and ferments 

 of the plant. No one has yet succeeded in infecthig healthy 

 stock with leaf-roll. It is readily transmitted by tubers, 

 and, Count Arnhn thinks, possibly by seeds also. In spite of 

 all the attention devoted to the investigation of this disease, 

 its cause is still a mystery, and until this is solved it is 

 impossible to suggest general preventive measures. On 

 no account should the tubers from a leaf-roll plant be 

 used as seed. 



During the meeting Wittmack summarised his views on 

 the tuber-bearing species of Solanum. He holds that all 

 European potatoes come from one true species, Solanum 

 tuberosum, that 5. Maglia is also a true, closely allied 

 species, and that both differ from 5. Commersonii. He 

 praised highly tlie drawings, made for Sutton and Sons, 

 of the Solanums by Worthington Smith. Wittmack was 

 sent by tlie German Government to inspect the plots of 

 S. Commersonii violet, believed by Labergerie and Heckel 

 to be a valuable disease-resisting variety, and, they think, 

 derived from S. Commersonii by mutation. It appears, 

 however, to be identical with Paulsen's Blue Giant, a 

 variety of 5. tuberosum, and, like all other varieties, liable 

 to leaf-blight and other potato diseases. 



Lindner directed attention to the difficulties of identifica- 

 tion of fermentation organisms. He proposed the creation 

 in Berlin of a central station where photomicrographs of 

 such organisms from all parts of the world could be stored, 

 named when necessary, and registered for consultation. 

 He illustrated his views by three volumes of such photo- 

 graphs, and in the course of the meeting used them to 

 name a soil organism exhibited by H. Fischer. Hosseus 

 described the rice industry in Siam, and urged the claims 

 of rice on the Germans as a cheap and nutritious food. 

 Ewert described the over-wintering of the conidia of 

 Fusicladium, the cause of apple and of pear spot. The 

 systematists devoted one day to the reading of papers by 

 Drude, Gilg, Diels, Ross. &c. Schwendener was elected 

 honorary president of the Deutsche Botanische Gesellschaft, 

 before which, at a morning sitting, two important papers 

 were read, one by Senn on the movements of cliromato- 

 phores, including a beautiful illustration of diatom cell- 

 division, and another by Kniep on assimilation activity 

 under different rays of light. 



A special feature of this year's meeting, which ought 

 not to go unrecorded, was the testing in different localities 

 of the winf' of the district. On the last da\' at Geisenheim 

 the three bodies sat in common for three hours to test no 

 fpwer than thirtv-five different kinds of wine, provided by 

 the Rheingau \A'ine Society. 



Some forty members subseouently soent several davs in 

 botanical excursions in the valleys of the Nahe and Mosel. 

 At Bertrich fine specimens of Buxits semfiervirens and 

 Acer monspessulainim were to be seen growing in plenty 

 on the rocky slonps. On the shores of the crater-lnke 

 fPulvermaar) at Gillenfeld, Pilularia globulifera formed a 

 regular sward. 



It was agreed to meet next vear at Miinster in time to 

 allow members to attend the International Botanical 

 Congress, and also the Seed-testing Conference at Brussels 

 at Whitsuntide. T. J. 



THS BRITISH AS SO CIA TION A T H 'INNIPEG 



SECTION H. 



anthropology. 



Opening Address ^.Abridged) by Prof. John L. Mvres, 



M..'\., F.S..^., President of the Section. 



The Influence of Anthropology on the Course of Political 



Science. 

 .Anthropology is the Science of Man. Its full task is 

 nothing less than this, to observe and record, to classify 

 and interpret, all the activities of all the varieties of this 

 species of living being. In the general scheme of know- 

 ledge, therefore, anthropology holds a double place, accord- 

 ing to our own point of view. From one standpoint it 

 falls into the position of a department of zoology, or geo- 

 graphy : of zoology, since man, considered as a natural 



NO. 2082, VOL. 81] 



species, forms only one small part of the animal popula- 

 tion of this planet ; of geography, because his reason, 

 considered simply as one of the forces which change the 

 face of nature, has, as we shall see directly, a range which 

 is almost world-wide. From another point of view anthro- 

 pology itself, in the strictest sense of the word, is seen 

 to embrace and include whole sciences such as psychology, 

 sociology, and the rational study of art and literature ; 

 since each of these vast departments of knowledge is con- 

 cerned solely with a single group of the manifold activities 

 of man. In practice, however, a pardonable pride, no 

 less than the weighty fact that man, alone among the 

 animals, truly possesses reason, has kept the study of man 

 a little aloof from the rest of zoology. Dogmatic scruples 

 have intervened to prevent man from ever ranking merely 

 as one of the " forces of nature," and have set a hard 

 problem of delimitation between historians and geo- 

 graphers. And the pardonable modesty of a very young 

 science — for modern anthropology is barely as old as 

 chemistry — has restrained it from insisting on encyclopcEdic 

 claims in face of reverend institutions like the sciences of 

 the mind, of statecraft, and of taste. 



Yet when I say that anthropology is a young science I 

 mean no more than this, that in the unfolding of that 

 full bloom of rational culture, which sprang from the seeds 

 of the Renaissance, and of which we are the heirs and 

 tiustees, anthropology found its place in the sunlight later 

 than most ; and almost alone among the sciences can 

 reckon any of its founders among the living. This was 

 of course partly an accident of birth and circumstance ; 

 for in the House of Wisdom there are many mansions ; 

 a Virchow, a Bastian, or a Tylor might easily have strayed 

 through the gate of knowledge into other fields of work, 

 just as Locl-ce and Montesquieu only narrowly missed the 

 trail into anthropology. 



But this late adolescence was also mainly the result of 

 causes which we can now see clearly. Man is, most nearly 

 of all living species, the " ubiquitous animal." Anthro- 

 pology, like meteorology, and like geography itself, gathers 

 its data from all longitudes, and almost all latitudes, on 

 this earth. It was necessary therefore that the study of 

 man should lag behind the rest of the sciences, so long 

 as any large masses of mankind remained withdrawn from 

 its view ; and we have only to remember that .'\ustralia 

 and .Africa were not even crossed at all — much less ex- 

 plored — bv white men, until within living memory, to 

 realise what this limitation means. In addition to this, 

 modern Western civilisation, when it did at last come into 

 contact with aboriginal peoples in new continents, too 

 often came, like the religion which it professed, bringing 

 " not peace but a sword." The customs and institutions 

 of alien people have been viewed too often, even by reason- 

 able and good men, simply as " ye beastlie devices of 

 ye heathen"" and the pioneers of our culture, perversely 

 mindful only of the narrower creed, that " he that is not 

 with us is 'against us," have set out to civilise savages 

 bv wrecking the civilisation which they had. 



Before an audience of anthropologists, I need not labour 

 the point that it is precisely these two causes,^ ignorance 

 of many remoter peoples, and reckless destruction or dis- 

 figurement of some that are near at hand, which are stilt 

 the two great obstacles to the progress of our science. 

 But it is no use crying over spilt milk, and I turn rather 

 to the positive and cheering thought that the progressof 

 anthropologv has been rapid and sure, in close proportion 

 to the spread of European intercourse with the natives 

 of distant lands, and that its further advance is essentially 

 linked with similar enterprises. 



Anthropology and Politics in Ancient Greece. 



Philosophv, as we all know, begins in wonder ; it is 

 the surest \vay to jostle people out of an intellectual 

 groove into new lines of thought, if they can be con- 

 fronted personally and directly with some object of 

 that numerous class which seems uncouth only because 

 it is unfamiliar. The sudden expansion of the geo- 

 graphical horizon of the early Greeks, in the seventh 

 and sixth centuries B.C., brought these earliest and keenest 

 of anthropologists face to face with peoples who lived for 

 example in a rainless country, or in trees, or who ate 

 monkeys, or grandfathers, or called themselves by their 

 mothers' names, or did other disconcerting things; and 



