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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H.—PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 6: 
Secrion H.—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION—D. G. Hogar, M.A., F.S.A. 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 1. 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
Religious Survivals. 
THE science of Anthropology, from its very nature, seldom touches the beliefs 
or customs of the higher actual civilisations; but exceptions occur when it 
enters the field of comparative religion. In coming to the aid of this fascinating 
study it can hardly help offending, sooner or later, certain prejudices which are 
deeply rooted and widely distributed, and that not only when it really contravenes 
the beliefs of pious minds, but, often enough, when its exponents neither wish 
to impair these beliefs, nor, as a matter of fact, are taking any steps to doso; for 
the opposition which meets science when it concerns itself with religion is very 
frequently arrayed before the opponent has taken the time or the trouble to 
ascertain whether anything vital or essential is concerned in the investigation. 
At any rate it will be allowed that the majority of the treatises on this study 
written in the English tongue do not, by any lack of reverent treatment or by any 
obvious oblivion of the responsibility resting on those who inquire into the 
religious basis of our social order, display any desire to offend. But just because 
some offence must almost inevitably be given, even by the most reverent anthro- 
pologist, in pursuing investigations which involve examination of actual pious 
beliefs, it is especially incumbent on students of this particular subject to proceed 
only along the most strictly judicial lines, careful not to force a conclusion from 
evidence which is in any respect dubious or even incomplete; and, moreover, to be 
quite clear in their own minds and to make it clear to others how far their inves- 
tigation really touches actual religion in vital and essential points of belief as 
distinguished from mere points of observance or ritual, ¢.e., religious accidents, 
as they might be called. Obvious as this caution may seem, neglect of it is very 
general, and has led to much needless suspicion of Anthropology as a science with 
covert and far-reaching purpose, subversive of all religion. 
It is in the interests of definition and clearness (in a controversial topic 
among the religious inquiries of anthropologists) that I have chosen my theme 
to-day. I have small claim to expound the science, as usually understood, to 
which this Section is devoted, whether on its physical or on its social side, so far 
as the latter is principally concerned with actual custom and folklore. But as one 
who has spent more than twenty years in studying the ancient life of that region of 
the world in which three of the greatest actual systems of religion were developed, 
and a good part of his time among the modern peasantry of the region itself, 
I have had my attention particularly directed to the evolution of religious beliefs 
and observances during long periods of time, which are unusually well illu- 
minated for us from first to last by the light of both monuments and literature ; 
