British Association for the Advancement of Science. 291 



homes and oracular places of science be our allotted place of 

 labour till we meet together again, I am persuaded that those 

 influences will operate upon us all, that we shall all remember 

 this our present meeting, and look forward with joyful expec- 

 tation to our next reassembling, and by the recollection and 

 the hope be stimulated and supported." 

 - Highly, however, and justly as we prize the social and sym- 

 pathetic ardour of mind which these meetings spontaneously 

 produce, we must not confine our views to this object in such a 

 manner as to propose to dispense with more direct endea- 

 vours to effect the advancement of science. On this subject 

 some remarks were offered by Mr. Harcourt, at the close of 

 his statement of the Recommendations of the Committee and 

 of the appropriation of certain sums to scientific purposes. 



After adverting to some remarkable instances which had 

 come to his knowledge of the actual effect of these meetings 

 in awaking the dormant spirit of science, and enumerating 

 among the indirect benefits that arise from them the means 

 which they supply to persons whose merits have been ob - 

 scured by accidental circumstances, of vindicating their own 

 rightful claims, and of repelling that false and partial criti- 

 cism by which genius had in former days been too often de- 

 pressed, he proceeded to say, " After all, every important 

 advantage which these meetings possess, and, above all, the 

 maintenance in them of the true principles and character of 

 philosophical investigation, will entirely depend on the con- 

 tinued presence and concurrence of the master-spirits of 

 science ; and it must be remembered that these are the per- 

 sons whose attendance, from the value of their time, it is 

 most difficult to secure. From the first commencement of 

 the Association I have always held that there is but one mo- 

 tive strong enough to tear those persons from their retire- 

 ments and to bind them to these annual meetings. If you 

 here offer to them the direct and acknowledged means of ad- 

 vancing the science to which they are attached, if you assist 

 the astronomer in effecting the reduction of the elements of 

 his calculations, if you establish for the meteorologist a 

 system of conjoint and extended observations from which the 

 laws of the atmosphere may be deduced, — with such objects 

 before them, the greater mastery they may possess in science 

 the more eager will be the interest which they take in your 

 meetings, and the more probable it is that you will enjoy the 

 advantage of their counsel, and the communication of their 

 spirit, than which there is nothing more essential to give life 

 and consistence to your proceedings.' ' 



This we are persuaded is the vital principle on which the 



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