258 Professor Forbes's Address to the British Association. 



terest that powerful Body on behalf of the important objects 

 contemplated by the Association, which its co-operation might 

 effectually secure. The formation of a Statistical Section at Cam- 

 bridge was the prelude to the establishment of a flourishing 

 society, which acknowledges itself the offspring of this Institu- 

 tion, and which promises, by a procedure similar to that intro- 

 duced by the Association, to advance materially the greatly 

 neglected subject of British statistics. 



Gentlemen, I shall be satisfied if, in the preceding hasty re- 

 view, I shall have given you some direct and tangible proof of 

 the working of a system, the excellence of which may best be 

 appreciated by such statements. Did it come within the scope 

 of these observations (which it does not), I could quote examples, 

 equally specific, of the powerful moral influence of the Associa- 

 tion. Yet, in conclusion, I will call upon you to remark, be- 

 cause I believe that it comes home to the breast of every one 

 who has habitually attended these our annual reunions, what a 

 spirit is infused into otherwise isolated and perhaps ineffective 

 exertions, when many minds, conversant with one class of ob- 

 jects, and aiming at one great end, unite in friendly and intel- 

 lectual converse. There is an impulse there which no system of 

 cold calculation can estimate. There is a bond in the sense of 

 community of purpose, which is the cement of society. There 

 has been, we fear, a general but most erroneous impression 

 abroad, that philosophers are incapable of enjoying, and stoically 

 superior to, the ordinary sociabilities of life, — that scientific ar- 

 dour dwells only in the mind of the solitary, and gives place to 

 narrow-minded jealousy, when another attempts to share the 

 prize. If, in a few cases, such allegations have not been with- 

 out a colouring of truth, it is to meetings like these that we 

 should look for a cure which no mere reasoning can effect. The 

 most striking feature of these meetings has ever been, the per- 

 vading sense which has thrown a peculiar character over them, 

 of the one great and exalted object which united so many dis- 

 tinct and unconnected individuals, — which not less, has drawn 

 into this great assembly, the single and unaided labourer in the 

 cause of science, from the solitudes of the country, or the still 

 greater intellectual solitude of some noisy and commercial city. 



