26 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT ANNUAL MEETING. 



larger conception that it is true of all possible triangles, and 

 further still that the truth lies in the very nature of a triangle. 

 Such is the irony of fate that we really never really under- 

 stand llie case of the particular triangle, until we have grasped 

 the idea (in the Platonic sense) of all triangles. 



Now if this is true in the simplest forms of study, it is yet 

 more true in the recondite. The ordinary definition of the ideal 

 is " that which is not real " — which is true — but what do we mean 

 by the real ; is not the ordinary sense of the word " real " a 

 warning of how easy it is to confine our ideas to the particular 

 example and lose the sense of the wider truth which underlies 

 the particular example. 



The word " real," that modern outcome of scholastic 

 thought, if it means anything, means that which is " res," a 

 definite concrete thing, and our use of it to connote the true, the 

 " very " to use the good old word, is itself a warning how much 

 our thought is bound down to the particular example that we 

 know, and how apt we are to lose the sense of the wider truth, 

 that we at best but half know and but half comprehend, but 

 which is far truer than the real. 



Are we not in danger of being caught in the meshes of our 

 own thought. Even the wisest and best theory may be a trap, 

 if we fail to recognise that it iiiiist be an imperfect explanation of 

 the whole of the truth, unknown and unknowable in the fullest 

 sense. We feel that the theory is " real," it is clear, definite and 

 conclusive and exactly suits our power of comprehension ; there- 

 fore let us beware of supposing that it is exhaustive. Nature is 

 greater than our minds, and therefore if a theory is no greater 

 than our minds, it must be smaller than the truth of nature. 

 Just in proportion as a theory satisfies us, it bears upon it the 

 evidence of incompleteness ; and if we do not take care we may 

 become hide-bound by it. Lavoisier's theory of the proportionate 

 combination of elements : Dalton's theory of atoms : were 

 magnificent and have borne fruit in much of the wonderful pro- 

 gress of modern science ; and yet in their very perfection, they 

 left out a something that the older phlogiston theory, erroneous 

 and imperfect as it was, had got a glimpse of. Even their very 

 success threw back the investigation of " thermochemistry " 

 v^hich is not less important to the grasp of the whole problem. 

 Only a few years ago we were tempted to feel satisfaction in our 



