Presidential Address. 167 



to carry conviction of the value of our Society's energy throughout 

 the length and breadth of the Scientific World. 



In our new President — nominated, if I may be allowed to say 

 so, in a lightning flash of prophetic inspiration by the Council, a 

 nomination ratified by his election at your hands — we have the 

 man above all others best fitted and equipped to grasp the helm 

 which will direct the course of our Society's progress at this 

 moment of departure along a specialized and strengthened line of 

 endeavour. I believe that I may say — though I say it with 

 all humility — that the experiment of electing to this Chair an 

 enthusiast from the " Bug and Slug " section within the Society, 

 has not resulted in any retrogression in our history ; on the 

 contrary some echoes of our work during the past two years have 

 disturbed the serenity of several learned bodies — from the Royal 

 Society downwards — which had fallen almost into the habit of 

 forgetting our existence. I take it as a reward for any efforts I 

 have made for the welfare and the development of the Society 

 that you have repeated the experiment. You have elected an ' 

 enthusiast from the " Brass and Glass " section within the Society, 

 and under his cautious and capable influence I look forward to 

 seeing the Society take the place which is ours by right — a place 

 the importance of which it would be impossible to overestimate 

 among the Scientific Societies of the whole world. 



Gentlemen, I have done. My last words from this Chair have 

 been spoken, and I will conclude with an expression of my 

 conviction that both as a body corporate, and in our individual 

 capacities as citizens of this great Empire, we shall go on to the 

 end of the present strife, our mental vision fixed upon the dawn of 

 better things, and, in the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, 

 " With malice towards none ; with charity for all ; with firmness 

 in the right as God gives us to see the right — let us strive to finish 

 the work we are in ; to bind up this nation's wounds ; to care for 

 him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan ; 

 to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace." 



