22 
JOURNAL OP THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
dent to deliver, no better course presented itself than the illustration 
of progress from the history of a science to which the scientific 
method was almost unknown when this Institution was founded, 
and briefly to indicate the new light it has thrown upon our local 
interests and concerns. 
" That is best which lieth nearest," 
is peculiarly true in relation to the work of a Society like ours. 
I refer to Archaeology, the great link between Geology and 
History, between the record of the rocks and the record of the pen, 
no longer the waste domain of the Dilletante, the Virtuoso, and 
the Dryasdust — a chaotic aggregate of hobbies — but extended, 
systematized, and developed, into one of our noblest and most 
interesting studies. And my special purpose is to ask your atten- 
tion to what seem to me its chief lessons touching the past of our 
own fair county of Devon. If strict scrutiny bereaves us of many 
a fond fancy and long cherished belief, I hope to show that Arch- 
aeology is eminently a constructive science — that it does not shatter 
old faiths without replacing them by new ones. And if many of 
our conclusions are found to differ, wide as the poles asunder, from 
those of the few earnest antiquaries of the older time, let it not be 
thought that the pioneers of Archaeology are lightly esteemed or 
their work undervalued. What they did was good and true, accor- 
ding to the measure of their means and their abilities. We are 
very differently placed. The position is admirably summarized by 
the worthy representative of one of the most honoured antiquarian 
names. 
" The lights'' of the antiquary of the last century "were two, and two 
only. They were the Bible and the classics. All questions of ancient 
history were to be solved by an appeal to these ; what was not be found 
in the one was sure to be found in the other. Just consider how much 
is open to us which was inaccessible then. The hieroglyphics of Egypt, 
the cuneiforms of Assyria, the whole of the mighty literature of the 
Vedas, the bamboo tablets of Ceylon, the sacred books of Persia, the 
Chinese classics, the Scandinavian Sagas — even our own native annals 
in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland— all alike were closed books to the 
antiquary of the last century. Considering all this, the work which he 
did accomplish was wonderful, and his labours, no less than his ingenuity, 
are deserving of our thanks and praise." 1 
1 W. C. Borlase, f.s.a., M.r., Trans. Penzance Nat. Hist. Soc. 1880-81, 
p. 25. 
