170 ANNIVEESAUY ADDRESS BY THE PEESIDENT. 



I think it is time that some master-mind should endeavour to build 

 into one system our vast accumulation of facts. To illustrate my 

 meaning, let us suppose that twenty of the larger buildings in 

 London, with their contents, were thrown into a vast and confused 

 heap, and that each passer-by threw on the heap a piece of stone 

 or wood — without reference to its position. To this may be 

 likened the independent and therefore sometimes apparently 

 discordant contributions to our store of knowledge which are 

 constantly accumulating. Of course, each student is trying to 

 reduce his pet study into order, but I think without sufficient 

 reference to the other sciences. "We want a master-builder to 

 take this immense aggregation of facts and build them into a 

 vast Temple of Truth, symmetrical and beautiful in all its parts, 

 where spiritual, moral, and physical truths may receive their 

 due attention, without inordinate prominence to either ; so that 

 harmony and order may reign throughout. 



Allow me to congratulate you on the prosperous state of 

 our Society, and also on the appearance of the first volume of the 

 * Transactions.' We are much indebted to our Secretary and 

 Editor, Mr. John Hopkinson, for the trouble he has taken ; and 

 the work does him great credit. I congratulate you also on my 

 successor. It so happens that my presidency occurs between 

 that of two most eminent Fellows of the E,oyal Society. If 

 you can imagine an ordinary gas-lamp for a time endowed with 

 feeling and placed between two electric lights of the most im- 

 proved stamp, you can imagine the feelings of a small light like 

 myself ; for I have no pretension to any special knowledge of 

 Natural History, and I must say with the poet — 



" Into Nature's infinite book of secrecy 

 A little I can see ; " 



and a very little. Our past and future Presidents, you know, are 

 foremost among men of science in. their respective studies, and they 

 have obtained so much the confidence of their fellows that they 

 have been elected treasurers of scientific societies than which there 

 are none more celebrated in Europe, our past president being 

 treasurer of the Royal Society, and our future president being 

 treasurer of the Linnean Society and the Geological Society. I 

 anticipate a most useful and progressive career for our Society 

 under the presidency of Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys. 



