Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/107

Rh are not so immediately apparent. I can not for a moment pretend to place myself on the same purely scientific level as my distinguished friend and for many years colleague, Lord Rayleigh, and my claims, such as they are, seem to me to rest on entirely different grounds. Whatever little I may have indirectly been able to do in assisting to promote the advancement of science, my principal efforts have now for many years been directed toward attempting to forge those links in the history of the world, and especially of humanity, that connect the past with the present, and toward tracing that course of evolution which plays as important a part in the physical and moral development of man as it does in that of the animal and vegetable creation. It appears to me, therefore, that my election to this important post may, in the main, be regarded as a recognition by this association of the value of archæology as a science. Leaving all personal considerations out of question, I gladly hail this recognition, which is, indeed, in full accordance with the attitude already for many years adopted by the association toward anthropology, one of the most important branches of true archæology.

It is no doubt hard to define the exact limits which are to be assigned to archæology as a science and archæology as a branch of history and belles lettres. A distinction is frequently drawn between science on the one hand and knowledge or learning on the other; but translate the terms into Latin and the distinction at once disappears. In illustration of this I need only cite Bacon's great work on the Advancement of Learning, which was, with his own aid, translated into Latin under the title De Augmentis Scientiarum. It must, however, be acknowledged that a distinction does exist between archæology proper and what, for want of a better word, may be termed antiquarianism. It may be interesting to know the internal arrangements of a Dominican convent in the middle ages; to distinguish between the different moldings characteristic of the principal styles of Gothic architecture; to determine whether an English coin bearing the name of Henry was struck under Henry II, Richard, John, or Henry III; or to decide whether some given edifice was erected in Roman, Saxon, or Norman times. But the power to do this, though involving no small degree of detailed knowledge and some acquaintance with scientific methods, can hardly entitle its possessors to be enrolled among the votaries of science. A familiarity with all the details of Greek and Roman mythology and culture must be regarded as a literary rather than a scientific qualification; and yet when among the records of classical times we come upon traces of manners and customs which have survived for generations, and which seem to throw some rays of light upon the dim