820 president's address. 



acquaintance with systematic natural history — the aspect of 

 biology which on the whole most directly concerns my fellow- 

 members — is a very narrow one. In view of my positive disquali- 

 fication from this point of view, I cannot help feeling that my 

 acceptance of the honourable office to which you were good 

 enough last year to call me has placed me in a position which, if 

 not wholly false, is at least somewhat misleading. 



I am not in a position to review the recent work in any large 

 division of biological science; nor am I prepared with a contri- 

 bution towards the advancement of knowledge in any important 

 subdivision of biological inquiry. 



How, then, can I best attempt to reveal the intellectual 

 sympathy which yet undoubtedly underlies the relation between 

 us as members of this Society — a sympathy which serves to unite 

 persons of such diverse interests as geologists, physiologists, 

 botanists and entomologists in the common bond of a kindred 

 spirit ? Need I do more on an occasion like this than ask you to 

 call to mind the name under which as a Society we are enrolled ? 

 For, to the whole civilised world of to-day, the name of the 

 illustrious Swedish Naturalist stands for that of fellowship in 

 that true Nature-worship which consists in lifelong devotion to 

 any one of her manifold aspects, and of which our Society is at 

 once a means and an expression. 



The interpretation of the phenomena of life and organisation 

 in some detailed province is what each of us is attempting from 

 day to day, and in his own way, to realise. Yet perhaps it 

 is as well that we should occasionally detach ourselves from the 

 engrossing and fascinating details of our special work, and ask 

 ourselves — not as scientific specialists, but as biologists in a wider 

 sense — what these familiar yet mysterious phenomena of life may 

 imply. 



However much the necessities of specialisation may separate 

 us in the everyday aspects of our work, here, at least, we shall 

 be upon common ground. And should such an undertaking 

 require apology, it is that my own qualifications to be the 

 exponent of such topics are so meagre. Yet even this imperfect 



