234 REPORT ON THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF 



REPORT ON THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF 

 PHYSICS AND NATURAL HISTORY OF GENEVA, FROM 

 JULY, 1858, TO JUNE, 1859. 



BT PROEESSOR DE LA BIVE, PRESIDENT. 



[Translated for the Smithsonian Institution from the Memoires, &c, Tome xv., Premiere 

 Partie, 1859, by C. A. Alexander.] 



Gentlemen: An existing regulation of the society devolves on its 

 president the duty of presenting to you, at the moment when he is 

 about to lay aside his functions, a detailed report on the labors of the 

 body during the year just elapsed. This order, which for the year 

 previous was fulfilled by our former president, Professor Gautier, I 

 now propose on my own part to execute. ^ 



The Society of Physics and of Natural History embraces in its 

 field of labor, as its title indicates, alike the physical sciences and the 

 natural sciences, that is to say, every part of the domain of human 

 knowledge which has for a basis observation and experiment in the 

 field of nature. Pure mathematics, therefore, do not fall within its 

 compass, though applied mathematics are by no means excluded; for 

 how could such be the case where astronomy, mechanics, and physics 

 occupy so prominent a place ? But as there is no one versed in pure 

 mathematics who does not more or less make an application of them, 

 it follows that association with us lies always open to the learned 

 mathematician, and thus we are warranted in saying that no scientific 

 notability of our country is excluded on system from our circle. 



The division between the physical sciences and the natural sciences 

 which the name of the Society recalls is not purely arbitrary. It is 

 founded on a true principle, namely, that in the study of nature 

 there are two points of view strictly different: the one having for its 

 object more particularly the study of forces and laws, the other at- 

 taching itself essentially to the examination of bodies themselves. 

 Not that in the former kind of study bodies do not play an import- 

 ant part, since it is only through their medium that we take cogni- 

 zance of forces, nor in the latter that forces should not be taken into 

 consideration, since without them we could not know the properties 

 of bodies. But the dominant and characteristic division is in strict- 

 ness that which I have indicated. 



The distinction, however, is not always very definite, and if we 

 place physiology in the division of natural sciences and not in that of 

 the physical sciences, it is solely because physiology is inseparable 

 from organic natural history, which furnishes its elements, and to 

 which at the same time itself serves as a basis. 



