FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OP SCIENCE. 149 



The noble chairman then addressed the meeting ; and, after ex- 

 pressing his sympathy with the melancholy event which deprived 

 them of the presence of the Marquis of Lansdowne, panegyrized the 

 Association and its effects in expressive language. " I trust (he 

 said) that Bristol will follow the example of the other places which 

 this Association has visited ; and that, for this week at least, all 

 sectarian feelings will die away, and the hideous forms of political 

 and religious animosity will be banished : it is not by hating our 

 fellow-citizens that we show either our patriotism or our religion. 

 This happy consummation is one of the great moral advantages of 

 the Association. There is another point to which I wish to advert: 

 there have arrived to join us many distinguished persons from fo- 

 reign parts ; I am sure it is not necessary for me, in Bristol, whence 

 Sebastian Cabot sailed, to urge upon you to welcome and cherish 

 them. Shew to them that the time has at length arrived when 

 Science and her sisters, Religion, Arts, and Literature — those four 

 enchantresses, with their magic wand, have scared away the fiends 

 of national enmity and strife ; and that all nations are now united 

 in furthering the common interest of our common species." 



Dr. Daubeny, as one of the secretaries for the Bristol meeting, 

 on whom the task devolved, next addressed the assembly, and gave 

 an excellent resume of the proceedings of the past year, and analysis 

 of the volume of transactions, which has just been published. We 

 are reluctantly compelled to confine ourselves to his concluding re- 

 marks : — (l What proportion of such inquiries (i. e., those contained 

 in the volume over which he had gone) may be attributable to the 

 influence of this Association, and how much might have been mere- 

 ly the result of that increased taste for physical research to which 

 the Association itself owes its existence, I do not pretend to deter- 

 mine ; this, however, at least, must be allowed, that many of the most 

 important truths communicated might have been long in winning 

 their way to general recognition, and in ridding themselves of those 

 exaggerated and mistaken views which are the common accompani- 

 ments of every infant discovery, had it not been for the opportuni- 

 ties which these meetings afford of examining the very authors 

 of them, with respect to their own inquiries ; of confronting them 

 with others who have prosecuted similar trains of research ; of 

 questioning them with respect to the more doubtful and difficult 

 points involved ; and of obtaining from them, in many instances, 

 an exhibition of the very experiments by which they had been led 

 to their conclusions. * * * It is consolatory to reflect that 

 Providence has attached to every one of the conditions of society 

 through which nations are destined to pass, capabilities of moral and 

 intellectual improvement ; and that the very sciences which so am- 

 ply minister to our physical enjoyments also afford the means of 

 those higher gratifications which spring from the exercise of the 

 taste and the imagination. Thus, although it may not be easy for 

 the citizen to indulge to any extent in studies alien from the pur- 

 suits which engross his hours of business, yet it cannot be deemed 



