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able to bring forward some of the arguments I had so recently urged in the 
Victoria Institute, against the notion that the primitive man could possibly 
have been a speechless savage, before the largest possible audience that could 
be hoped for in the Sections of the British Association. I may also add 
that, while no discussion follows the introductory Address delivered by the 
president of the Association or the evening Lectures that are given every year, 
all the papers read in the several Sections are open to discussion, and are 
usually discussed, although unfortunately there is no systematic or official 
report of the discussions that take place. The newspapers to a certain extent 
supply this defect ; but it will be obvious that, when so much has to be 
recorded, their reports, as a rule, must be very imperfect. 
I have much pleasure in stating that when my paper was read at Notting- 
ham, it was as well received by the audience generally, as it had been 
previously when read in the Victoria Institute. 
I shall now give some account of the discussion that followed, partly 
taken from the newspaper reports (in which case I shall employ quotation- 
marks), and otherwise upon my own responsibility as to accuracy. Professor 
Huxley’s observations I am glad to be able to give, I think very nearly 
verbatim,, from the Nottingham Daily Guardian, viz. : — 
“ Professor Huxley, who was invited by the president to offer some re- 
marks on the paper which had just been read, said I should be delighted 
in my private capacity to obey any of your behests, but, on the present 
occasion, I am unfortunately not in my primitive or personal insignificance, 
but the representative of a department of the Association, and one of the 
officers of the Association charged with the administration of a Section. 
It has, in the wisdom of the council of the Association, been thought proper 
that a department should be instituted in Section D, of which I have the 
honour to be the head. It is called the Department of Anthropology ; and if 
I have any comprehension of scientific method or arrangement, the paper we 
have just heard read is purely an anthropological paper, and can only be 
competently discussed by those persons who are familiar with all the sciences 
necessary for the student of anthropology. Under these circumstances, there- 
fore, I should, by beginning to discuss this paper, admit the propriety of its 
being read here, and that in my official capacity I cannot do. I may, perhaps, 
be allowed to remark that in our department we have a wholesome practice 
called 1 referring a paper.’ When a paper is sent to us we ‘ refer ’ it, in order 
to ascertain whether it contains anything new, anything true, or anything 
worth discussing ; in a word, whether the paper should be read or whether 
it should not. But though I think this is a paper for our section, I do not 
pledge myself that it would have passed the particular ordeal which I have 
described. (Laughter.)” 
Mr. Nash, as secretary of the Ethnological Society, and one of the secre- 
taries of Section E, “ protested against the views of Professor Huxley, and 
defended the reading of the paper in this section, inasmuch as it is not 
only a Geographical, but an Ethnological Section ; ” and he added that the 
Ethnological Society had never admitted that their science precluded them 
from the consideration of all the facts that bear upon man’s past and 
present condition, such as those which had been brought forward in this paper. 
