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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 199. 



died. If Copernicus had lived to extreme 

 old age he might have handed the De 

 Orhium Celestium Revohdionihus to Galileo. 

 "While the whole history of science is thus 

 nearly spanned by five lives, modern science 

 is scarcely older than our Association. It 

 was only in the decade of its foundation 

 that the doctrine of the conservation of 

 energy was announced, while the Origin 

 of Species was published in the year of 

 our eleventh meeting. If the physical 

 sciences, as we now understand them, are 

 scarcely more than fifty years old, and the 

 biological sciences are only forty years 

 old, the anthropological sciences are still 

 younger. Perhaps these are now in the 

 condition of the physical sciences before 

 they had become truly exact, of the biolog- 

 ical sciences before they had become truly 

 genetic. 



It is easy to prophesy after the event, 

 and from our present point of view science 

 in its history appears to have followed a 

 necessary course. The phenomena of the 

 physical world are stable and readily sub- 

 ject to experiment and measurement; their 

 control is essential to material progress. 

 It is, therefore, no wonder that the physical 

 sciences should have preceded the biological 

 sciences in their development. Far more 

 complex, transient and inaccessible to ex- 

 periment even than the phenomena of living 

 beings are men, they themselves and their 

 deeds — sciences of these things must come 

 late. As man has been evolved from 

 simpler forms of life, and these were pre- 

 ceded by a lifeless earth, so the sciences 

 dealing with man, with life and with matter 

 must be based one upon the other. The 

 history of science is, therefore, full of 

 promise for the student of anthropological 

 science. We may grant the past to others 

 and claim the twentieth century for our 

 heritage. Perhaps our Copernicus, our 

 Newton, our Lavoisier, our Darwin is one 

 of the younger members of this Section. 



It may, however, be that the subject- 

 matter of the anthropological sciences is 

 such that they will proceed without catas- 

 trophe. The form of the earth is altered 

 by earthquakes on occasion, but every day 

 it is molded to a greater degree by less 

 obtrusive agencies. In the making of the 

 anthropological sciences by the collecting 

 and arranging of facts, by discovery and by 

 generalization, we have every reason to be 

 satisfied with the part taken by America 

 and by this Association. In many sciences 

 we must at once yield the leadership to 

 older nations. In the youngest of the sci- 

 ences we at least stand on terms of equal 

 service. It was perhaps by special provi- 

 dence that last year's meeting of our Asso- 

 ciation was presided over by an anthropolo- 

 gist, but this year we chose to celebrate our 

 fiftieth anniversary under a member of this 

 Section. That this Section should have sup- 

 plied three of our last five presiding ofiicers 

 and our permanent secretary for twenty-five 

 years ; that the British Association should 

 have come to America to establish its Sec- 

 tion of Anthropology and on its second visit 

 should have chosen an anthropologist for 

 its president— these things we may at least 

 regard as an omen of the place of anthro- 

 pology in the science that is to be and of 

 the place of America in anthropology. 



While anthropology, largely owing to 

 the richness of the material at hand and to 

 the great Bureau of American Ethnology 

 established to investigate this material, has 

 come to such fruition in America, psychology 

 has also shown great vitality. Unlike an- 

 thropology, psychology is distinctly a uni- 

 versity discipline. For reasons chiefly 

 theological, ethical and educational, mental 

 and moral philosophy had been taught 

 from the foundation of our colleges by the 

 president of each institution to all students. 

 It happened that at the same time that 

 psychology had developed into a science, 

 the college president became an executive 



