A REPORT—-1905. 
lost the simple meaning implied by the words, and has become a mere 
exclamation of surprise. Such a conventional expression could hardly 
have gained currency except amongst a people who aspire to knowledge. 
The dominance of the European race in America, Australasia, and South 
Africa has no doubt arisen from many causes, but amongst these perhaps 
the chief one is that not only do ‘ we want to know,’ but also that we are 
determined to find out. And now within the last quarter of a century 
we have welcomed into the ranks of those who ‘want to know’ an 
oriental race, which has already proved itself strong in the peaceful arts 
of knowledge. 
I take it, then, that you have invited us because you want to know 
what is worth knowing ; and we are here because we want to know you, 
to learn what you have to tell us, and to see that South Africa of which 
we have heard so much, 
The hospitality which you are offering us is so lavish, and the journeys 
which you have organised are so extensive, that the cynical observer might 
be tempted to describe our meeting as the largest picnic on record. 
Although we intend to enjoy our picnic with all our hearts, yet I should 
like to tell the cynic, if he is here, that perhaps the most important 
object of these conferences is the opportunity they afford for personal 
intercourse between men of like minds who live at the remotest corners 
of the earth. 
We shall pass through your land with the speed and the voracity of a 
flight of locusts ; but, unlike the locust, we shall, I hope, leave behind us 
permanent fertilisation in the form of stimulated scientific and educa- 
tional activity. And this result will ensue whether or not we who have 
come from Europe are able worthily to sustain the lofty part of prophets 
of science. We shall try our best to play to your satisfaction on the great 
stage upon which you call on us to act, and if when we are gone you shall, 
amongst yourselves, pronounce the performance a poor one, yet the fact 
will remain, that this meeting has embodied in a material form the desire 
that the progress of this great continent shall not be merely material ; 
and such an aspiration secures its own fulfilment. However small may 
be the tangible results of our meeting, we shall always be proud to 
have been associated with you in your efforts for the advancement of 
science. 
We do not know whether the last hundred years will be regarded for 
ever as the seeculwm mirabile of discovery, or whether it is but the prelude 
to yet more marvellous centuries. To us living men, who scarcely pass 
a year of our lives without witnessing some new marvel of discovery 
or invention, the rate at which the development of knowledge proceeds 
is truly astonishing ; but from a wider point of view the scale of time 
is relatively unimportant, for the universe is leisurely in its procedure. 
Whether the changes which we witness be fast or slow, they form 
a part of a long sequence of events which begin in some past of im- 
measurable remoteness and tend to some end which we cannot fore- 
