Among the many notable characteristics by which the last half century has been distinguished, there are two which bid fair permanently to colour its records and materially to influence the future of our country. I refer in the first place to the scientific study of man, his nature, his needs, and his potentialities; and in the second to the growing appreciation of the fact that the centre of ethical gravity must be shifted from absorption in the sole concerns of self to an intelligent interest in the affairs of others--that is to say, that selfishness must yield to well organised and discriminating social service. I. MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE It is of course no new thing for questions upon the real nature of that complex creature, man, to force themselves upon the attention of the observant, and from time immemorial the philosophical have spent themselves in efforts to solve this problem by theories designed to detect, even if not to account for, the agencies active in the formation of the human mind and body. The records of older civilisations bear testimony to their labours, and are familiar to most students of ancient literatures. But it was not till the resources of modern science forged new tools for the inquirer that it became possible to chisel out from the bedrock of fact the main features of man's physical and social history. With admirable patience and infinite skill, the scientific craftsmen of recent times have laboriously pieced together the scattered chips of biological research, of human tradition, of tribal customs and of world-wide folklore, until the dignity and power, the beauty and the possibilities of human nature have emerged from the dust of ignorance and the veil of superstition. The result is that it is no longer permissible to deplore in pessimistic tones the inevitable degradation of the race, nor to accept with supineness the threatened deterioration of a population. The forces by which humanity is moulded are no longer unknown; the principles which underlie social stability have been identified; the means by which the arts may be developed, which make life not only tolerable but healthful, are ready to our hands.