10 



ANNUAL MEETING. 



aggressive materialism in the twentieth century as when fought 

 over by aggressive Calvinism in the sixteenth. 



We must then never think that we have got rid of an 

 essential question by turning to a fresh ground of research with 

 new materials and outlooks. 



Fully recognizing this limitation of our deductive powers, 

 and knowing that no root-questions are avoided by opening a 

 new field, it is in this spirit that I would state as simply as I can 

 the new facts which liave to be taken in account concerning man. 



The view of man's nature as a scientific study can only be 

 reached from observation ; and the longer a series of obser- 

 vations are, the more we can draw from them. Again, the less 

 complex the causes are, the more truly can we see the results. 

 For both these reasons that course of civilization which is the 

 longest and the earliest is the most valuable as material for study. 



Till ten years ago we knew nothing of early civilization. In 

 Egypt and in Greece, thousands of years of changes were 

 entirely hidden from us, which we can now follow and compare. 

 There has never been such an extension of the knowledge 

 concerning man as in the last decade; for the opening of 

 prehistoric man to our view fifty years ago gave no such 

 complete picture, capable of joining at all points with our' 

 existing order of things, and carrying back an unbroken view of 

 detail over nearly ten thousand years. 



To clear our position it may be said that I do not attempt 

 now to enter on arguments on chronology. That alone is an 

 immense subject, and I cannot at this point deal with the 

 reserves of those — if there be any present — who can conceive of 

 all historic and geologic man being limited by 4004 B.C. or by 

 5503 B.C. To all who realize that such limits are the expression 

 of partial knowledge, I would say that it is as serious to exceed 

 the deductions from the Septuagint by a century as it is to 

 stretch to myriads or millions of years. It is just as much a 

 sacrifice of truth to take the shortest possible periods as the 

 longest possible ; and the only true course is to follow what 

 seems to be nearest to the facts. "Without then going into any 

 detail, I may say that we know by records of observations the 

 dates at 1500 B.C. within very close limits. Before that we 

 have the skeleton of history recorded back to about 4700 B.C. ; 

 and the recent discovery that the detailed yearly annals of a 

 thousand years were engraved in 3700 B.C. shows what a solid 

 basis there was for writing the early history. Before the 

 historic times all we can say is that in a large district that we 

 have studied, the graves are certainly more than half as 



