Anniversary Address of the President, 145 



consideration the irregularities and personalities to which such de- 

 bates would on some occasions give rise, unless very strictly li- 

 mited and very authoritatively controlled, as well as the indirect 

 influence which the premature expression of opinions upon the con- 

 tents and merits of individual papers might exercise upon the deci- 

 sion of the Council in selecting them for publication, you will be 

 disposed to agree with me, I trust, in thinking that such an experi- 

 ment would be at least dangerous to the peace, as it very possibly 

 might prove ultimately injurious to the scientific character, of the 

 Royal Society. 



But let me not be misunderstood : the success that has attended 

 this practice in the institution which has contributed so powerfully 

 to the rapid advance of a highly popular science, might appear to 

 offer a practical refutation of such grounds of alarm as those which I 

 have ventured to suggest ; but the cases of the two Societies are 

 extremely different. The science of geology is eminently a science 

 of observation, where facts, collected from all quarters of the globe, 

 and accurately recorded, possess a value which is in many cases 

 independent of the theoretical inferences that may be deduced from 

 them : it is a science which disdains not the aid of the humblest 

 labourers who can widen the range of its observations ; it is a sci- 

 ence also in which both facts and theories can be communicated 

 more accurately and more rapidly by a graphic and vivid oral de- 

 scription, aided by an immediate reference to maps, drawings and 

 specimens, than by the most elaborate and laborious written descrip- 

 tions ; it is a science which can only be learnt by being seen, and 

 which can only be seen through ten thousand eyes. In all these, 

 and in many other important particulars, it differs from the majority 

 of those sciences which most commonly come under the notice of 

 the Royal Society; and the many circumstances which not only jus- 

 tify, but in some degree render necessary, the discussions upon the 

 papers read, or the facts communicated to the Geological Society, 

 would almost entirely cease to apply if extended to us. And when 

 we further consider the varied knowledge and accomplishments, the 

 lively wit and rare eloquence of many of those distinguished men 

 who usually take part in those debates, and who are themselves the 

 highest authorities in the very science which on such occasions they 

 are called upon to illustrate and to teach, we should be disposed 

 rather to regard them as lectures delivered by great masters to pu- 

 pils who come to learn, than as the discourses of philosophers, 

 amongst each other, upon the more abstract and less attractive de- 

 partments of human knowledge. 



And now. Gentlemen, before I conclude this portion of my address, 

 there remains but one other point which I think it my duty to notice. 

 A trust of great importance, imposed on the President of the Royal 

 Society by the will of the last Earl of Bridgewater, the most onerous 

 and responsible duties of which devolved upon my worthy friend and 

 predecessor Mr. Davies Gilbert, is at length terminated, by the ap- 

 pearance, which has been long and anxiously expected, of the eighth 

 Treatise of the series. It would ill become me to speak of the mode 



Third Series. Vol. 10. No. 59. Feb. 1837. U 



