Presidents Concluding Address, 383 



unsupported inquirers ; but, however important a numerous 

 attendance may be, the character of the Association mainly 

 depends on the number and value of the reports and com- 

 munications made to the Sections. Both these causes bad 

 been happily combined in making our present meeting one of 

 very considerable interest. Discoveries, indeed, of no small 

 value, have been communicated for the first time at this 

 meeting ; and the most important of these by some of the 

 younger members of the Association. To us older members, 

 whose term of labour is about to expire, it is no slight grati- 

 fication to mark the living genius which is now luxuriant 

 around us, and promising by the fruit which it bears to 

 maintain and extend the scientific and literary glory of the 

 empire. Nor is it less interesting to us who live in a por- 

 tion of the kingdom less favoured than the rest in point of 

 wealth and endowments, to observe how actively science is 

 often pursued under difficulties and embarrassments ; and 

 how minds of a high order put forth new energies in resist- 

 ance to the very power which would otherwise crush and 

 destroy them. In taking a retrospect of the intellectual 

 condition of the past, there is a natural and commendable ten- 

 dency to exaggerate, in any comparative estimate, the merits 

 of our more immediate predecessors. This, doubtless, arises 

 from the affectionate relation which exists between the 

 teacher and the taught, — from the absence of all those rival 

 feelings from which our prostrate nature is seldom wholly 

 free ; and from the respect which is always due, and ever 

 paid to the illustrious dead. But without taking into ac- 

 count this influence over our judgment, I have no hesitation 

 in saying, that however brilliant be the names, and glorious 

 the memories of those eminent men who have adorned the 

 Universities of our eastern and western metropolis, there 

 never was a period in our history when their chairs were 

 better filled, — their youth better instructed, — and science 

 and literature more energetically advanced, than by the dis- 

 tinguished Professors who have taken such an active part in 

 the business of the British Association. Among the bodies 

 connected with the University of Edinburgh who especially 

 merit this praise, I cannot avoid mentioning the College 

 of Physicians and the College of Surgeons. Edinburgh has 



