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Section H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION—JoHN Evans, D.C.L., LL.D., D.Sc., Treas.R.8., 
Pres.S.A., F.L.S. 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 
The following Address by the PRESIDENT was read by Mr. RuDLER :— 
In the year 1870 I had the honour of presiding over what was then the 
Department of Ethnology in the Biological Section of the British Association at its. 
meeting in Liverpool. Since that time twenty years have elapsed, during the 
greater portion of which period the subjects in which we are principally interested 
have been discussed in a department of Anthropology forming part of the organi- 
sation of the Biological Section; although since 1883 there has been a new Section 
of the Association, that of Anthropology, which has thus been placed upon the 
same level as the various other sciences represented in this great parliament of 
Imowledge. This gradual advance in its position among other branches of science 
proves, at all events, that, whatever may have been our actual increase in know- 
ledge, Anthropology has gained and not lost in public estimation, and the interest 
in all that relates to the history, physical characteristics, and progress of the 
human race is even more lively and more universal than it was twenty years ago. 
During those years much study has been devoted to anthropological questions by 
able investigators, both in England and abroad; and there is at the present time 
hardly any civilised country in the world in which there has not been founded, 
under some form or another, an Anthropological Society, the publications of which 
are yearly adding a greater or less quota to our knowledge. The subjects 
embraced in these studies are too numerous and too vast for me to attempt 
even in a cursory manner to point out in what special departments the principal 
advances have been made, or to what extent views that were held as well 
established twenty years ago have had either to be modified in order to place 
them on a surer foundation, or have had to be absolutely abandoned. Nor could 
T undertake to enumerate all the new lines of investigation which the ingenuity of 
students has laid open, or the different ways in which investigations that, at first 
sight might appear more curious than useful have eventually been found to have a 
direct bearing upon the ordinary affairs of human life, and their results to be 
susceptible of application towards the promotion of the public welfare. I may, 
however, in the short space of time to which an opening address ought to be 
confined, call your attention to one or two subjects, both theoretical and practical, 
which are still under discussion by anthropologists, and on which as yet no generat 
agreement has been arrived at by those who have most completely gone into 
the questions involved. 
One of these questions is—What is the antiquity of the human race, or rather 
what is the antiquity of the earliest objects hitherto found which can with safety 
be assigned to the handiwork of man? ‘This question is susceptible of being entirely 
separated from any speculations as to the genetic descent of mankind; and even 
were it satisfactorily answered to-day, new facts might to-morrow come to light 
that would again throw the question entirely open. On any view of probabilities, 
