OCR Rendition - approximate

1877.] Economic Science and the British Association. 471 " Cost and Propriety of removing to England the Fallen Obelisk of Alexandria. " Memoirs that might properly have been read in other Sections: " Influence of the Sun-spot Period upon the Price of Corn (in A). " Legislative Protection to the Birds of Europe (in D). " Influence of large Centres of Population on Intellectual Manifestation (in D, Anthropological Department). " Need of Systematic Observations on Physical Characteristics of Man in Britain (in D, Anthropological Department). " It will be observed that not a single memoir treats of the mathematical theory of Statistics, and it can hardly be doubted that if any such paper should be communicated to the Association, the proper place for it would be in Section A. " It must be freely conceded that Section F deals with numerous and important matters of human knowledge ; but this is not of itself a title to the existence of the Section, because many other equally important matters, such as history, are by common consent inappropriate subjects for the British Association. Usage has drawn a strong distinction between knowledge in its generality and science, confining the latter in its strictest sense to precise measurements and definite laws, which lead by such exact processes of reasoning to their results, that all minds are obliged to accept the latter as true. It is not to be expected that these stringent conditions should be rigorously observed in every memoir submitted to a scientific meeting, but they must not be too largely violated ; and we have to consider whether the subjects actually discussed in Section F do not depart so widely from the scientific ideal as to make them unsuitable for the British Association. " It would be a tedious and an ungrateful task to criticise in detail the multifarious topics embraced in the list we hate given. But it is not necessary to -undertake it, as it will be easy for men of science to judge for themselves by simply glancing over the list. It is believed that the general verdict of scientific men would be that few of the subjects treated of fall within the meaning of the word `scientific,' and that the few of them that do would be wholly insufficient to occupy the time of the Section during the meeting. Even of these -few, some, as shown in the last paragraph of the list, might have been communicated with equal or even greater propriety to other Sections. It would therefore seem impossible to continue the Section, owing to the experienced difficulty of finding suitable materials, if all the unscientific papers were excluded. " It must be remarked that hardly any of the subjects in the above list, besides the few last named, would gain by being discussed by representatives of the special branches of science who are assembled at the British Association. This Section therefore occupies a peculiar position of isolation, being neither sufficiently scientific in itself, nor receiving help from the other Sections. In the first respect it may be alleged that the Anthropological Depart-