SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION. 7 



brought great lustre to these two institutions and to South Africa. But 

 in other fields also South African scientific workers have won recognition. 

 In Geology, Marine Biology, the Mathematical Theory of Determinants, 

 the Economics of Gold Production, and along several other lines of 

 investigation, important scientific work has been done in South Africa ; 

 a succession of discoveries has been made throwing light on the origins 

 of the human race ; and applied science has by means of the conquest 

 of distance in this far-flung land of ours, and of the construction of 

 important irrigation and other engineering works, contributed generously 

 to South Africa's progress. It may, perhaps, be taken as a measure of 

 the achievement of Science in South Africa in one of its aspects that, 

 while in 1906 the value of products of the land exported from South 

 Africa amounted to £5,928,000, the corresponding figure for 1927 was 

 £27,815,000. 



But if I were asked to select the most broadly significant feature in the 

 development of Science in South Africa since 1905, 1 think I would pick 

 out what one might describe as its South Africanisation. In 1905 Science 

 in South Africa was in large measure exotic. The workers had come almost 

 exclusively from other lands. They were only beginning to apply them- 

 selves to our South African problems. In many cases they had not yet 

 acquired a South African background, nor a South African outlook. In 

 the years that have passed South Africa has claimed those workers for 

 her own, and they have given themselves to her service. They to whom 

 this is the land of their adoption, no less than those to whom it is the 

 land of their birth, and whom they have taught and inspired, have made 

 it the land of their vigorous and devoted service. _ In its personnel Science 

 in South Africa has become essentially South African. And Science has 

 given itself with enthusiasm to the problems of South Africa. It has 

 emphasised the specific contributions of South Africa to the wider problems 

 of Science, it has applied itself to the removal of those obstacles which 

 hamper the material development of South Africa, it has taken up vigor- 

 ously the study of South African Economics and Sociology and Anthro- 

 pology. Perhaps also one may claim that it has brought to bear on 

 scientific investigation what we regard as the distinctive features of the 

 South African outlook — freshness and breadth of view, receptivity to 

 new illuminations, and readiness to see old truths in new settings and 

 in the light of their wider bearings. Is it not South Africa that has given 

 to Science and the world the conception of Holism ? And there is surely 

 no gift more worthily representative of the South African outlook at its 



