162 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
engaged, all over the world, in the hopeless attempt to extract history 
and geography from the traditional narratives, instead of putting these to 
their proper use, which is to act as a guide to the rites of the people con- 
cerned, and so to their beliefs and ideas. 
The only sure foundation for the edifice of science is the concrete of 
ascertained fact, reinforced by the steel rods of universally tested theory. 
The ground upon which the edifice of social anthropology had to be built 
was encumbered not merely by the ruins of ancient superstitions, but also 
by the jerry-buildings of pseudo-history and pseudo-psychology, and 
many anthropologists have believed that these survivals could be in- 
corporated in the new edifice. The result has been that social anthro- 
pology has been allotted, very properly, a low place among the sciences. 
It will never occupy what should be its proper place until a vast quantity 
of pre-scientific and pseudo-scientific rubbish has been cleared from 
its path, and if this address helps in the smallest degree to bring about 
this clearance, it will have more than achieved its object. 
