The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-20 00:00:00

THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

Dr. HOOKER, in the course of his inaugural address,
after referring to the absence of Sir Roderick Murchison
(caused, he explained, through ill-health) and of Professor
Sedgewick (who had met with an accident), stated that he
proposed to remark on the great advances made in botany
in the last few years, with a divergence into Darwinism,
after which he would allude to the early history of man-
kind. His first duty as president would be to introduce
to the Association the members of the International
Congress of Pre-historic Archaeology then assembled
in Norwich. Next he brought forward the subject
of the efforts of a committee of the council to in-
duce the Secretary for India to adopt active measures
to obtain reports on the physical form, manners, and cus-
toms of the indigenous population of India, and especially
of those tribes which are still in the habit of erecting
Megalethic monuments • and he pointed out that within
300 miles of the capital of British India there is a tribe of
semi-savages who erect dolmens, menares, cysts, and
cromlechs, almost as gigantic as the Druidical remains of
Europe. Some interesting accounts of the habits and
customs of this Khasia people of East Bengal were
given, and the president next proceeded to detail the pro-
ceedings of a committee of the Association in reference to
obtaining the placing of the Natural History collections
of the British Museum under one central management,
and so arranged that they may be utilised in teaching the
elements of zoology and physiology, while some assistance
in this regard should be given to provincial and local
museums. On the value of museums generally as adjuncts
to instruction he dwelt at length. Turning to his
own special science, he stated that great advances had
been made during the last ten years in the depart-
ments of fossil botany and vegetable physiology. The
knowledge of coal plants had been chiefly advanced by
Geeppert and Unger on the Continent, and Dawson in
Canada, and also by Mr. Binney, of Manchester, who had
afforded much information on the least understood of the
coal measures, known as calamites, which are shewn to be
members of the family of equisetacea. A good deal was
next said of the information as to tertiary mines and on
fossil botany generally : while the subject of a series of
papers by Mr. Darwin on the fertilisation of plants, in refe-
rence to discoveries in physiological botany, was elaborately
expounded, dissertations on cowslips and primroses being
specially dwelt upon ; and it was stated that the disco-
veries mentioned had added whole chapters to the rrinci-
pies of botany, and that what Faraday's discoveries were to
telegraphy Darwin's would prove to rural economy.
Having thoroughly exhausted this subject, th© president
next went on to discuss the position now held in the
scientific world by Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of
species by natural selection, and contended that the trea-
tise was not, as had been asserted, declining in
scientific favour ; but, so far from being a thing of the
past, was an accepted doctrine with every philosophical
naturalist, was elsewhere gaining adherents steadily,
and was an avowed favourite with the rising schools
of naturalists. This assertion was borne out by
elaborate statements and illustrations, by which
objections taken to the system on geological,
astronomical, physical, and metaphysical grounds were
answered. The next phase of the address was
devoted to the prospects which the present meeting of
the Association opened. A new science—that of the early •
history of mankind, or pre-historic archteology, including
the origin of language and of art—had dawned upon the
scientific world ; and one of its discoveries was, that man
had inhabited the earth for many thousands of years be-
fore the historic period. At this point the deli-
cate subject of the respective attitudes of religion
and science was discussed, and indications given
of the desirableness and possibility of their being able
to walk hand-in-hand together. It was contended that a
great number of eminent clergymen of all denominations
had adorned science by their writings and religion by their
lives, and much was said to prove that professors of reli-
gion need not hare that fear of science by which many of
them seemed to be influenced ; and it was urged that
there should he a union in search after truth, as it refei s
to the spiritual history and condition of mankind, of the
archaeologist and the religious teacher. After en-
larging and insisting on the value of science in
establishing new facts and exposing old errors, the presi-
dent concluded by saying that the bond which unites the
physical and spiritual history of man, and the forces which
manifest themselves in the alternate victories of mind and
matter in the actions of the individual, are, of all subjects
that physics and psychology have revealed to us, the most
absorbing, and perhaps inscrutable. In the investigation
of these phnlmena is wrapped up Le past and the future,
the whence and the whither of man's existence ; and after
a knowledge of these the human soul still yearns and
passionately strives.
Dr. Hooker resumed his seat amid loud cheers, and
n cordial vote of thanks for his address was moved by Pro-
fessor Huxley, seconded by Professor Tyndall, and sup-
pprted by the Mayor of Nodich, who heartily welcome 4,
thugsaca4tion to this