BIOLOGY IN RELATION TO OTHEPi NATURAL SCIENCES.* 



By J. S. Burdon-Sanderson, F. K. S. 



We tire assembled this evening- as representatives of the sciences — 

 men and women wlio seek to advance knowledge by scientific methods. 

 The common gronnd on which we stand is that of belief in the para- 

 mount value of the end for which we are striving, of its inherent power 

 to make men wiser, happier, and better; and our common purpose is to 

 strengthen and encourage one another in our efforts for its attainment. 

 We have come to learn what progress has been made in departments 

 of knowledge which lie outside of our own special scientific interests 

 and occupations, to widen our views, and to correct whatever miscon- 

 ceptions may have arisen from the necessity which limits each of us 

 to his own field of study; and, above all, we are here for the purpose 

 of bringing our divided energies into eflectual and combined action. 



Probably few of the members of the association are fully aware of the 

 influence which it has exercised during the last half century and more 

 in furthering the scientific development of this country. Wide as is 

 the range of its activity, there has been no great (piestion in the field 

 of scientific inquiry which it has failed to discuss; no important line of 

 investigation which it has not promoted; no great discovery which it 

 has not welcomed. After more than sixty years of existence it still 

 finds itself in the energy of middle life, looking back with satisfaction 

 to what it has accomplished in its youth, and forward to an even more 

 efficient future. One of the first of the national associations which 

 exist in different countries for the advancement of science, its influence 

 has been more felt than that of its successors, because it is more 

 wanted. The wealthiest country in the world, which has profited more, 

 vastly more, by science than any other, England stands alone in the 

 discredit of refusing the necessary expenditure for its development, 

 and cares not that other nations should reap the harvest for which her 

 own sons have labored. 



It is surely our duty not to rest satisfied with the reflection that 

 England in the past has accomplished so much, but rather to unite 



'Inaugural Presidential address before British Association, for the Advancement 

 of Science; at Notingham, September 13, 1893. {Nature, Sept. 14, 1893; vol. XLViii, 

 pp. 464-472.) 



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