A HALF-CENTURY OF SCIENCE. 65 



Death, formerly the end of health, is nowadays the end of a dis- 

 ease. 



Dying a natural death is one of the lost arts. 



There seems to be a strange fatum in the association of astronomy 

 with humbug : formerly in horoscopes, and now in patent-medicine al- 

 manacs. 



A patent-medicine man is generally the patentee of a device for 

 selling whisky under a new name. 



A " chronic disease," properly speaking, is nothing but Nature's 

 protest against a chronic provocation. To say that chronic complaints 

 end only with death, means, in fact, that there is generally no other 

 cure for our vices. 



Every night labors to undo the physiological mischief of the pre- 

 ceding day at what expense, gluttons may compute if they compare 

 the golden dreams of their childhood with the leaden torpor-slumbers 

 of their pork and lager -beer years. 



If it were not for calorific food and superfluous garments, midsum- 

 mer would be the most pleasant time of the year. 



A HALF-CENTURY OF SCIENCE* 



By Sir JOHN LUBBOCK. 



IN the name of the British Association, which for the time I very 

 unworthily represent, I beg to tender to you, my Lord Mayor, and 

 through you to the city of York, our cordial thanks for your hospi- 

 table invitation and hearty, welcome. We feel, indeed, that in coming 

 to York we were coming home : gratefully as we acknowledge and 

 much as we appreciate the kindness we have experienced elsewhere, 

 and the friendly relations which exist between this Association and 

 most I might even say all our great cities, yet Sir R. Murchison 

 truly observed, at the close of our first meeting in 1831, that to York, 

 " as the cradle of the Association, we shall ever look back with grati- 

 tude ; and whether we meet hereafter on the banks of the Isis, the Cam, 

 or the Forth, to this spot we shall still fondly revert." Indeed, it 

 would have been a matter of much regret to all of us if we had not 

 been able on this, our fiftieth anniversary, to hold our meeting in our 

 mother city. 



My Lord Mayor, before going further, I must express my regret, 

 especially when I call to mind the illustrious men who have preceded 



* Presidential address before the York Meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science. 

 vol. xx. 5 



