LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 27 



from our couimuuications and exhibits ; of effort to place these 

 at the service of others ; of continued endeavour to promote 

 natural knowledge. We have not entirely overlooked the 

 relationship between our pursuits and the business of life ; nearly 

 one-fourth of the productions of nature viewed by us have been 

 of economic interest. But tlie practical application of philo- 

 sopliical knowledge has not been one of our chief activities ; the 

 avowedly economic papers in our journal-books have been few. 



In tlie XVII. Century precedence was given to use over 

 discovery. This was natural. Every scientific activity has 

 originated in some field where practical wit and skill were 

 already busy. Man hunted, fished, and herded before Zoology 

 began ; he raised crops and gathered simples before Botany. 

 He divided his time and directed his course by the stars before 

 Astronomy ; set limits to his fields before Geometry ; became 

 weather-wise before Meteorology. He forestalled science when 

 he first built a hut, shot a bolt, or lit a fire. 



Why did this Society reverse the XVII. Century seipience ? 

 As our records do not say aud our practice has been uniform, 

 the change must have occurred before our foundation in 1788. 

 A generation prior to that date another Society was created to 

 promote practice in industry. The work of tliat still active body 

 involves the application of science in various arts and crafts. 

 Its members from the first were informed with the spirit of 

 progress. Science now looked to industry for help in the task 

 of improving philosophical matters for use and felt more free 

 to concentrate her energies on the improvement of these for 

 discovery. 



Subsequent developments have shown that due allowance was 

 not made for the difference in outlook of those for whom natural 

 knowledge is applied aud those by whom that knowledge is 

 obtained. Industry was not clearly distinguished from Technology. 

 The difference between the rate at which philosophical students 

 may promote knowledge and that at which practical men can 

 apply knowledge was not foreseen. The devolution to industry 

 of what science once considered her first duty tended to obscure 

 the community of scientific and industrial interest, to accentuate 

 the diversity of scientific and industrial purpose, aud to lead the 

 activities and energies of philosophical study and industrial 

 enterprise into separate paths. 



The industrial society which is our senior undertook one 

 duty of science as regards every branch of natural knowledge. 

 Our society undertook all the duties of science in one branch of 

 natural knowledge. What was our task ? 



An account of the progress of botany in this country up to 

 1790 reveals the attitude of contemporary science towards one- 

 half of our pursuits. That work has but one reference to the 

 author of the "Anatomy of Vegetables," and the allusion does 

 not relate to histology but to the taxonomic bearing of a con- 

 jecture regarding the ' attire ' of a flowering plant. The work 



