118 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



long dormant potentiality of the good old Royal Society. 

 Few of the two score members who have attended — or of 

 the ten score who have stayed away from — the meetings of 

 this respectable body, have bethought them that beneath its 

 ample wing there was room for any nestlings but such as 

 chirped abstrusely of biology, chemistry, physics, and all 

 that stern sisterhood of science, who are not to be wooed 

 save with tireless toil of research, with concentration of 

 knitted brows, and libations of midniglit oil. At meeting 

 after meeting we sat and listened while our betters threaded 

 labyrinths of tlieory, and shot out waggon loads of facts, 

 lightly gliding through mazy calculations, or glibly "chatter- 

 ing stony names." We hearkened diligently with much heed, 

 if haply we might gather for ourselves a few crumbs from so 

 plenteous, and so indigestible, a feast. And still we gazed, 

 and still the wonder grew, as other Anakim rose, and 

 discussed and criticised off-hand these miracles of abstruse- 

 ness, put what seemed to be pertinent questions, and with 

 Burleigh-nods received answers which, for us, " made the 

 case darker, which was dark enough without." But not 

 even the genial aspect of our president, as he sat wearing all 

 that vveigTit of learning lightly like a flower, could embolden 

 us to rise and reveal our abysmal ignorance by question, 

 much less by criticism. We were in our own sight as grass- 

 hoppers, and so we were in their sight. There was 

 something depressing in being thus, as it were, mere 

 cumberers of the ground, the one excuse for the impertinence 

 of whose existence lay in the hope that our annual subscrip- 

 tions helped to plume the wings of science for soaring far 

 above our ken. Then some one spoke his open-sesame at a 

 long-sealed door, and behold, we also had a mission ! 



And now that oui' vocation is revealed to us, we perceive 

 that we can never be at a loss for lack of material whereon 

 to work. For, passing by for the present music and art, as 

 being as yet but doubtfully represented amongst us, the 

 whole range of literature lies before us as our field of study. 

 Homer is not too remote, nor Browning too near. Nor 

 poetry only, but fiction, with — shall we say, including ? — 

 history and biography ; the long result of time in scholar- 

 ship and criticism ; the thoughts that shake mankind in 

 theology and philosophy. The mine is inexhaustible ; how 

 we shall work it, we see as 3'et but dimly. We ma}^ remark 

 at the outset, that the main object of our co-operation must 

 be to furnisli incentives and aids to readino; and reflection. 



