Meeting of British Association, 395 



watching and regulating the progress of his impetuous soldiers in 

 the different directions to which their ardour may have led them, 

 carefully noting the gaps which may arise from their independent 

 and eccentric action, and attentively observing what impediments 

 may have stopped, or may threaten to stop, the progress of certain 

 columns. 



Thus it attempts to fix and record the position and progress of 

 the different labours by its Reports on the state of Sciences pub- 

 lished annually in its Transactions; — thus it directs the attention 

 of the labourers to those gaps which require to be filled up, if the 

 progress is to be a safe aud steady one ; — thus it comes forward 

 with a helping hand in striving to remove those impediments 

 which the unaided efforts of the individual labourer have been or 

 may be unable to overcome. 



Let us follow the activity of the Association in these three dif- 

 ferent directions. 



The Reports on the state of Science originate in the conviction 

 of the necessity for fixing, at given intervals, with accuracy and 

 completeness, the position at which it has arrived. For this object 

 the General Committee of the Association entrusts to distinguished 

 individuals in the different branches of Science the charge of 

 becoming, as it were, the biographers of the period. There are 

 special points in different Sciences in which it sometimes appears 

 desirable to the different Sections to have special Reports elabo- 

 rated ; in such cases the General Committee, in this capacity of 

 the representative assembly of all the Sciences, reserves to itself 

 the right of judging what may be of sufficient importance to be 

 thus recorded. 



The special subjects which the Association points out for inves- 

 gation, in order to supply the gaps which it may have observed, 

 are — either such as the philosopher alone can successfully investi- 

 gate, because they require the close attention of a practised observer, 

 and a thorough knowledge of the particular subject ; or they are 

 such as require the greatest possible number of facts to be obtained. 

 Here Science often stands in need of the assistance of the general 

 public, and gratefully accepts any contributions offered, provided 

 the facts be accurately observed. In either case the Association 

 points out what is to be observed, and how it is to be observed. 



The first is the result of the same careful sifting process which 

 the Association employs in directing the issue of special Reports* 

 The investigations are entrusted to specially-appointed committees, 



