Farewell address, delivered at the fourth anniversary of the Anthropological Society of London, January 1st, 1867 / by James Hunt.

  • Hunt, James, 1833-1869.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Farewell address, delivered at the fourth anniversary of the Anthropological Society of London, January 1st, 1867 / by James Hunt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    questions put by the committee of the International Medical Congress, which will take place at Paris in 1867. Two of these questions, The Acclimatisation of European races in hot climates, and Menstruation, according to race, climate, and description of life, arc purely anthro¬ pological. It is, however, wonderful how small is the amount of knowledge we possess respecting man generally. What Rousseau said in his day is nearly true now :—“ The most useful, and the least success¬ fully cultivated of all human knowledge, is that of man.” When shall this stigma on the good sense of civilised man be removed ? When shall the time arrive when it can be no longer said with truth that we know more of the formation and the laws regulating the movements of the heavenly bodies than we do of the formation and the laws regulating mankind generally ] With these questions I might have closed my last address as Pre¬ sident of the Society, did I not desire to add a few words of personal explanation for my past and future action, in regard to this Society, to both friends and foes. In the first place, I desire most earnestly to thank, not only my more immediate friends and supporters, but the Fellows of the Society, for the support and confidence they have reposed in me. During the past four years there have been periods in the history of the Society, when, but for the support I have received from the executive and council of the Society, I should not this day be able to announce to you that the establishment of an Anthropological Society, and the introduction of a science into this country of that name, is an accomplished fact. I must now ask those who have supported me to continue that assistance to my suc¬ cessors in the high office which I now resign. I have felt it no small honour to be the elected and trusted chief of so important and in¬ fluential a Society as ours has now become. I relinquish this office, then, with some feelings of regret, for I can assure both friends and foes that I consider the office of President of such a Society as our own to be one of the highest offices to which any scientific man in this country can aspire. Happily, it is unnecessary for me now to enter into a justification of the policy I have thought it my duty to pursue. My policy, if such it can be called, has merely been to follow the dictates of what I have felt to be my duty, and this duty for four years has been my greatest pleasure. I am not conscious that I have ever allowed my conduct, as President, to be influenced by feelings of either personal friendship or animosity. To those who have assisted me and the Society by their consistent and persevering opposition, I also now beg publicly and sincerely to return my thanks. It would not have been natural nor desirable that such a Society as our own should have come into existence with¬ out having to pass through the fiery ordeal of criticism, opposi¬ tion, and calumny. We have had our share of all these, and if it has fallen to my lot to be signalled out as the victim on whom the indignant public might vent their wrath, I do not complain, but rather thank my worst enemies, that they have never charged me with unfairness in the manner I have felt it my duty to preside over the deliberations before the Society. I can only commend to my