RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL, n 



have become ! But when ninety per cent has gone, he will be able to 

 hold his head as high as the best ; and the accomplishment of this 

 percentage is not half so difficult now as the task encountered by the 

 pioneers who first blazed a path in the wilderness of ignorance and 

 superstition in which they found him in 1862, Educate the negro, and 

 he becomes free indeed in " mind, body, and estate." 



EELATIOKS OF SCIENCE TO THE PUBLIC WEAL.* 



Bt SIK LYON PLAYFAIR, K. C. B., M. P., F. K. S. 

 TART FIRST. 



I VISIT TO CANADA.— Ladies axd Gentlemen: Our last 

 • meeting at Montreal was a notable event in the life of the Brit- 

 ish Association, and even marked a distinct epoch in the history of 

 civilization. It was by no mere accident that the constitution of the 

 Association enabled it to embrace all parts of the British Empire. 

 Science is truly catholic, and is bounded only by the universe. In re- 

 lation to our vast empire, science as well as literature and art are the 

 common possession of all its varying people. The United Kingdom 

 is limited to 120,800 square miles, inhabited by thirty-five million peo- 

 ple ; but the empire as a whole has eight and one half million square 

 miles, with a population of three hundred and five millions. To fed- 

 erate such vast possessions and so teeming a population into a political 

 unit is a work only to be accomplished by the labors and persistent 

 efforts of perhaps several generations of statesmen. The federation 

 of its science is a subject of less dimensions well within the range of 

 experiment. No part of the British Empire was more suited than 

 Canada to try whether her science could be federated with our sci- 

 ence. Canada has lately federated distinct provinces, with conflicting 

 interests arising from difference of races, nationalities, and religions. 

 Political federation is not new in the history of the world, though it 

 generally arises as a consequence of war. It was war that taught the 

 Netherlands to federate in 1619. It was war which united the States 

 in America ; federated Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and unified 

 Italy. But Canada formed a great national life out of petty provin- 

 cial existences in a time of profound peace. This evolution gave an 

 immense impulse to her national resources. The Dominion still re- 

 quires consolidation in its vast extent, and applied science is rapidly 

 effecting it. Canada, with its great expanse of territory, nearly as 

 large as the L^nited States, is being knit together by the iron bands of 



* Inaugural address of the President of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, at the Aberdeen meeting, September 9, 1S85. 



