52 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



who seek after truth for its own sake with a want of religious or 

 reverential feeling, simply because they happen to see through 

 spectacles different from our own. One of our most eminent 

 biologists — Professor Huxley — having been designated an atheist 

 by a writer in one of the leading periodicals of the day, replied in 

 the following manly fashion : — " 1 do not know^ that I care much 

 about popular odium, so that there is no great merit in saying that 

 if I saw fit to deny the existence of a God I should certainly do 

 so for the sake of my own intellectual freedom, and be the 

 ' honest atheist ' you are pleased to say I am. As it happens, 

 however, I cannot take this position with honesty, inasmuch as^it 

 has always been a favourite tenet of mine that Atheism is as 

 absurd, logically speaking, as Polytheism." 



I think I may venture to say that microscopists in their exam- 

 ination of the " infinitely litde " find abundant evidence both of 

 design, and unity of design, in their researches. I feel I ought 

 to apologise for having spoken so freely on a much-controverted 

 subject ; but I do not like to sail under false colours, and a paper 

 I read in this room a short time ago would naturally lead some of 

 my audience to conclude that I was opposed to the theory Darwin 

 propounded in his " Origin of Species." 



At Reykjavik a society has just been established, under the 

 presidency of Professor B. Grondal, called the Icelandic Natu- 

 ralists' Society, the chief aim of which is to found a museum of 

 natural history for Iceland, to be the property of the country. 

 For this purpose it is not only intended to collect specimens of the 

 fauna, flora, and mineral deposits of Iceland, but also to obtain, 

 by exchange, or in any other convenient manner, specimens from 

 abroad. 



