Z INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



mention for business purposes between the inhabitants of dif- 

 ferent races.* 



This ' Malaya' then (if I may, at least on this occasion, use the 

 word) being our held, we have to consider what work has been 

 already done in it, and what remains to be done. 



And in speaking of work already accomplished, I must hasten 

 to do honour to one great name, which such a Society as this 

 must always hold in the greatest respect — it is almost needless 

 to say I mean the name of J. R. Logan. No doubt there were 

 great men who came before him here ; men who were possessed 

 of scientific knowledge, and patient observation, and intellectual 

 power, and who brought these great gifts to bear upon the 

 manifold wonders which nature has accumulated in this part of 

 the world ; and in their writings g'ave to their own time, and to 

 posterity, the benefit of their labour and research. Mr. Logan 

 had his predecessors, " Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona multi" 

 and we have not to lament with the poet, at least in the case of 

 all of them, that they lie overshadowed by the long night of ob- 

 livion, unwept and unknown. Marsden, Leyden, Raffles, New- 

 bold, not to mention Portuguese and Dutch travellers who came 

 before them, will ever be illustrious names in the history of 

 these countries. But to Mr. Log'an belongs the special honour 

 of having not only observed much, and thought much, and writ- 

 ten much himself, but also of having associated together with 

 himself other thinkers, and of having contrived a plan by which 

 the knowledge acquired by some of his contemporaries and 

 fellow residents in this Colony, and in the neighbouring Settle- 

 ments, might be recorded and published. This was, as you 

 know, by means of the " Journal of the Indian Archipelago." 

 The town of Penang justly boasts of its handsome memorial of 

 this remarkable man ; but the most enduring and the most 

 worthy monument of him is his own Journal, of which for l") 

 years, from 1817 to 186*2, he was the Editor, and to the papers 

 of which he was also the principal contributor. If there is any 

 member of this Society who has not yet done so, I would recom- 

 mend him to read the introductory article in the first number, 

 from Mr. Logan's own pen, upon "The present condition of the 

 Indian Archipelago." I think he cannot fail to rise from the 

 perusal of it full of admiration of the genius aud culture of the 



* In connection with this point the following passage from Mr. Logan's 

 writings may be of interest : — 



" If the word " Malay" be confined to the Malays and their language ; and 

 •'the word "Malayan" be exclusively used as a generic term for all the 

 " races and languages of what the French call Malaisie, we may dispense 

 " with the indefinite word " Archipelago" (Journal I. A. vol : III p. 229.) 



