LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDOIJf. 23 



PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS, 1914. 



When I had the pleasure of ackh-essing you on May 24, 1913, 

 I little thought that the same subject would require another 

 year's iuterinittent work, and furnish the material for another 

 Anniver!?ary Address. But tr. W. Sleeper's hooklet, dated 1849, 

 had been in my hands only two months, and the enquiry Avas 

 still proceeding, when the address was dehvered. I had informed 

 tiie author's son, Mr. J. E. Sleeper, that the registration of the 

 Mork was not to be found among the copyright records for 

 Massachusetts for the year 1849, that there was no evidence 

 of a copy having been deposited, and that therefore any docu- 

 mentary proofs which he could furnish would be of the utmost 

 importance. His reply, which arrived on June 2nd, a few days 

 after the delivery of the Address, shewed that decisive evidence 

 was in his possession : — 



Bense's contract, signed and sealed by hira and dated May 18, 1849, is 

 among my f'atlier's papers ; there is an entry in his old memo book for 1849, 

 " Bense, paiuplilets, §30," under that date ; and an MS. lecture, " Life and the 

 Cosmosite," refers to the Origin of Life as delivered in 1847. 



Mr. J. F. Sleeper had previously stated that the Avord 

 " Agnostic " had been introduced by his father, and that it 

 was to be found in the manuscript of a lecture to which he 

 assigned the date 1846. 



I wrote asking lor the loan of all these documents, in order 

 that they might be examined by experts. Mr. Sleeper replied 

 that, in the absence of the expected registration, they had 

 become so precious that he could only submit them one at a 

 time, and could only despatch the second after the safe return 

 of the first, and so with the rest. This meant loss of time ; 

 but the perfectly reasonable conditions could not be resisted, 

 and I still hoped that expert opinion would be unanimous, 

 no further evidence required, and the whole subject brought to 

 a decisive conclusion in a terminal note to the 1913 Address. 

 With this hope, the revised proofs were held back from the 

 press until late in the summer ; but by August 13 it was 

 obvious that the enquiry was far from complete, and I therefore 

 returned the proofs to the General Secretary, after adding the 

 brief explanatory paragraph on p. 45. 



I fully expected when the proofs were returned that the 

 investigation would be finished in time for a meeting in the 

 autumn session ; but, partly because I could not devote myself 

 to this subject continuously, although mainly on account of the 



