226 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 556. 



boasted mechanical inventions, we are per- 

 haps degenerate descendants of our great 

 predecessors. 



Yet the thought that to-day is less ro- 

 mantic and less heroic than yesterday has 

 its consolation, for it means that the lot 

 of man is easier than it was. Mankind, 

 indeed, may be justly proud that this im- 

 provement has been due to the successive 

 efforts of each generation to add to the 

 heritage of knowledge handed down to it 

 by its predecessors, whereby we have been 

 born to the accumulated endowment of cen- 

 turies of genius and labor. 



I am told that in the United States the 

 phrase ' I want to know ' has lost the simple 

 meaning implied by the words, and has be- 

 come 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 Amer- 

 ica, 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 organized are so extensive, that the 

 cynical observer might be tempted to de- 

 scribe 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 confer- 

 ences 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 fertiliza- 

 tion in the form of stimulated scientific 

 and educational 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 sci- 

 ence. 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 the meeting has 

 embodied in a material form the desire that 

 the progress of this great continent shall 

 not be merely material ; and such an aspira- 

 tion 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 hun- 

 dred years will be regarded forever as the 

 sceculum mirabile of discovery, or whether 

 it is but the prelude to yet more marvelous 

 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 immeasurable remoteness and tend 



