372 Royal Irish Academy, 



scientific and literary societies like our own ; and, I believe, that I 

 expressed myself accordingly, on the occasion* to which I lately 

 alluded. But having then to deal with science only, I felt that it 

 was unnecessary, and would have been improper for me to have 

 introduced any view of the connexion and contrast between science 

 and other studies, which are, not less than science, included among 

 the objects of this Academy, and may therefore be fitly, if briefly, 

 brought now before your notice. The union of all studies is indeed 

 that at which we aim ; but the three great departments, which our 

 founders distinguished without dividing, may now also with advan- 

 tage be distinctly considered, and separated, that they may be re- 

 combined ; a clearness of conception being likely to be thus attained, 

 without any sacrifice of unity. 



Directing our attention, therefore, first to science, or the study 

 of the True, — 



Inter sylvas Academi quaerere verum, — 

 we find that, even when thus narrowed, the field to be examined is 

 still so wide as to make necessary a minuter distinction ; whether 

 we would inquire, however briefly, what has been already done by 

 this Academy, or what may fitly be desired and hopefully proposed 

 to be done. Were we to rush into this inquiry without any pre- 

 vious survey of its limits, and, as were natural, allowed ourselves 

 to begin by considering the actual and possible relation of our 

 studies to the primal science, or First Plulosophy, the Science of 

 the Mind itself; we might easily be drawn, by the consideration of 

 this one topic, into a discussion, interesting indeed, and (it might 

 be) not uninstructive, but of such vast extent as to leave no room 

 for other topics, which ought even less to be omitted, because they 

 have hitherto come, and are likely to come hereafter, more often 

 than it, before our notice, in actual contributions to our Transactions. 

 Indeed I think it prudent at this moment to resist altogether the 

 temptation of expatiating on this attractive theme of Philosophy, 

 eminently so called ; and to content myself with remarking, that as 

 metaphysical investigation has more than once already found place 

 among the scientific labours of this Academy, so ought it to take 

 rank among them still, and to reappear in that character, from time 

 to time, in our pages. 



Confining ourselves, therefore, at present to Science, in the 

 usual acceptation of the term, and inquiring what are its chief di- 

 visions, in relation mainly to the connected distribution or classifi- 

 cation of scientific essays in our Transactions, we soon perceive that 

 three such parts of science may conveniently be distinguished from 

 each other, and marked out for separate consideration ; namely those 

 three, which, with some latitude of language, are not uncommonly 

 spoken of as Mathematics, Physics, and Physiology. The first, or 

 mathematical part, being understood to include not only the pure, 



* See Address, already cited, p. xlvi.— iVbfe by President. 



