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Your Excellencies, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Your kind reception, I am aware of the fact and I rejoice at it, is due to the cause which I represent as lecturer at this new chair; I am deeply sensible of the honor conferred upon me by London University in asking me to give the inaugural lecture of the new school.

Like the audience I deeply regret the illness which has prevented the Prime Minister from presiding to-day; I regret it all the more, because I know what interest on many occasions he has shown in the welfare of universities and other educational establishments. In this case it is very significant that the head of the British Cabinet was willing to preside at a lecture on the problem of small nations; several members of the Cabinet and British Government have frequently proclaimed that the idea and aim of this European Crisis is the liberation and freedom of the small States and Nations. Mr. Asquith's interest in these Slavonic studies is a good omen and an anticipation of what I shall bring forward in my lecture; I hope it even may be more, it may be a firm ﬁrst step in the practical solution of the problem to be discussed.

In speaking thus, I must not be suspected of confusing science with politics; but science is not to be regarded as something merely abstract and in the clouds, science means methodical and exact thought about everything within the