ADDRESS.

By J. A. PICTON, F. S. A., PRESIDENT.

FIRST of all I have to thank you for the honour you have done me in my election for a second term President of a Society which has for so many years stood in the van of literary and scientific progress in this locality. It is an honour which was unsought, and, if I may venture to say so without being misunderstood, undesired. I have already enjoyed the honour, and have arrived at a period of life when the energies begin to flag, and when, for reasons both personal and public, it is not desirable to take a very prominent position.

In early life, when the mind first begins to feel its powers, and the wide expanse of knowledge stands ready for occupation, every acquisition is hailed as a triumph and conquest. Our attention is taken up by the positive additions to our attainments; but as we advance in life, we become gradually aware of the extent of our ignorance-of the vast proportion which the things we do not know bear to those about which we have any real information. If this experience does not teach modesty and self-distrust, the lessons of life have been learned in vain.

It is therefore with some hesitation that I consent to occupy a position which might be better filled by a younger and more vigorous selection, but, having accepted the office, I will do the best in my power to fulfil its duties.

Within the last few years it has become the rule for your President, at the commencement of each Session, to give an

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Introductory or Inaugural Address. I think the rule a good one. It is a stimulus to the President to prove himself worthy of his office, and it naturally gives a wholesome impulse to the members to follow his example.

In framing these addresses, there is some difficulty in hitting the exact point. Vague declamations on the objects and advantages of science and literature, are apt to become stale and unprofitable; whilst the selection of any technical subject, on which to enlarge, resembles too much the ordinary Papers of the Session.

My immediate predecessor has wisely avoided both these extremes in the selection of his subjects; and in his addresses on prehistoric civilisation, and the vicissitudes to which human progress has been liable, has afforded a model for the general character of such compositions, which his successors may study with advantage.

I think I cannot do better than follow the course of ideas which our late President so ably initiated. He has traced out the symptoms of early civilisation in countries and periods very remote from our own, and speculated on the changes, retrogressive as well as progressive, which the human race has undergone, and of which evidences are visible to those who will seek for them. I propose to transfer the inquiry from the past to the future. I take the present state of things as we find it, by whatsoever means brought about, and I ask the question-In what direction, and towards what ends, is the current of human affairs flowing? Though the inquiry is too subtle to allow us to arrive at any very definite conclusions, and it would be presumptuous to dogmatise on a subject of such vast extent, yet there lie scattered about us, loosely and vaguely it may be, on every side, indications, more or less clear, of the development of ideas, the breaking up and re-formation of institutions, the necessary effects of material progress on the habits

of mankind, both personal and national, and the inter-penetration of thought necessarily resulting from the unlimited intercourse of modern times, which may enable us, with more or less accuracy, to determine the bearings of the current along which we are drifting.

My subject this evening, therefore, will be

THE TENDENCIES AND THE FUTURE OF
MODERN CIVILISATION.

It is necessary, in the first instance, to form a clear notion of what we understand by the employment of this term. Its ideal is not fulfilled by material prosperity; by extensive empire; by refinement of taste; by the rigorous and impartial administration of law; by the heights of philosophical thought to which a favoured few may soar; nor even by the existence of religious principles derived from the purest source. Some of these may be present, and carried to a high degree of perfection, and yet the highest style of civilisation may be far from attainment.*

Our late President, in his Address of October, 1872, thus sets forth his view: "Clearly the word civilisation refers to man himself, and not either to his works or his surroundings. It is his intellectual and moral being that we speak of, and we call him civilised or not according to the culture of his mind and the character of his behaviour."

M. Guizot thus explains his view of the subject: "Il m'a

"Une grande amelioration sociale, un grand progrés du bien-être matériel, se manifestent-ils chez un peuple sans être accompagnés d'un beau développement intellectuel, d'un progrés analogue dans les esprits; l'amelioration sociale semble precaire, inexplicable, presque illegitime."-Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation en France, i. 7.

"A great degree of social improvement, a great advance in material prosperity, if they manifest themselves amongst a people without being accompanied by a corresponding mental progress, the social improvement appears precarious, unaccountable, and scarcely legitimate."

paru que, de l'avis general, la civilisation consistait essentiellement dans deux faits; le developpement de l'état social, et celui de l'état intellectuel; le developpement de la condition extérieure et générale, et celui de la nature intérieure et personelle de l'homme; en un mot, le perfectionnement de la societé et de l'humanité."*

"It appears to me that by general consent civilisation is contained in two facts, the development of the social and intellectual condition-that of the exterior and general relations, and of the interior and personal nature of man; in one word, the perfecting of society and humanity."

These definitions are clear and intelligible, but to express my own idea it is necessary to add a word or two. Civilisation is to the body politic, what culture is to the individual, which consists, I venture to think, in the due and proportionate development of all his faculties, physical, intellectual, emotional and moral; and in proportion as any of these are neglected, the culture or civilisation will be imperfect, abnormal, and incomplete.

Before proceeding to speculate on the future, it is necessary to take a brief glance at the past. The course of the world's history has not been spasmodic or paroxysmal, but connected by cause and effect from a period far beyond the reach of human history or tradition. In times far remote from the present, civilisation existed, in certain relations of a very high character, the influence of which is felt at the present day, and will probably be perpetuated to the end of time. The course of human thought and progress has been so far shaped and modified by what has gone before, that the present and future can only be very imperfectly understood without a proper appreciation of the past. So much has been written about ancient civilisation, that it will only now be necessary to take a rapid survey of its most salient features.

* Histoire de la Civ., i. 6.

Ancient civilisation was essentially Greek in its origin. Here I cannot help quoting from a recent lecture by Sir Henry Maine, a passage which most eloquently and truly describes the relation of Greece to the progress of the world. He says, "Whatever be the nature and value of that bundle of influences which we call 'Progress' there was only one society in which it was endemic, and, putting that aside, no race or nationality left entirely to itself appears to have developed any very great intellectual result, except, perhaps, poetry. Not one of those intellectual excellencies which we regard as characteristic of the great progressiveness of the world-not the law of the Romans; not the philosophy and sagacity of the Germans; not the luminous order of the French; not the political aptitude of the English; not that insight into physical nature to which all races have contributed-would apparently have come into existence if these races had been left to themselves. To one small people, covering in the original seat no more than a handful of territory, it was given to create the principle of progress, of movement upwards, and not backwards and downwardsof destruction tending to construction. That people was the Greek. Except the blind forces of nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin. A ferment spreading from that source has vitalised all the great progressive races of mankind, penetrating from one to another, and producing results accordant with its hidden and latent genius, and results of course, often far greater than exhibited in Greece itself."

Now, Greek civilisation was essentially æsthetic in its character, and gave a similar tone to the culture of the ancient world. All the surroundings of Greek life were marked by the most exquisite taste. Their architecture displays a refinement of form and proportion elsewhere sought in vain. Their sculpture, in its dignified repose and