468 WRITINGS OP JOSEPH HENRY. [1871 



ON THE ORGANIZATION OF A SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY.* 

 (Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington, vol. i, pp. v-xiv.) 



Delivered November 18, 1871. 



Gentlemen: I have been requested to make some remarks 

 on the character and object of this Society which may serve 

 to introduce it to the world through the pages of a Bulletin 

 of its proceedings, or the public journals of the day, and in 

 compliance with this request, I beg leave to submit the fol- 

 lowing reflections on the importance, as well as on the proper 

 conduct of such an association. 



This Society was formed by the call for a meeting of a 

 number of gentlemen impressed with the importance of an 

 association of a strictly scientific character, in the city of 

 Washington. At the meeting which resulted from this call, 

 a name and a constitution were adopted for the Society, and 

 without delay, in a series of subsequent meetings, the objects 

 of the association were prosecuted with such marked success, 

 as to fully realize the anticipations which had been enter- 

 tained with regard to the enterprise. This is manifest from 

 the number, character, and variety of the communications 

 presented and discussed. 



In regard to the name which has been chosen, "The 

 Philosophical Society of Washington," it is proper to 

 remark that it was adopted not without considerable delib- 

 eration. The term " Philosophical " was chosen not to denote, 

 as it generally does in the present day, the unbounded field 

 of speculative thought, which embraces the possible as well 

 as the actual of existence, but to be used in its restricted 

 sense to indicate those branches of knowledge that relate to 

 the positive facts and laws of the physical and moral uni- 

 verse. The second term, "Washington," was selected to 

 denote the fact that the Society is a local establishment ; that 

 it arrogates to itself nothing on account of its position at the 



* [Anniversary Address of the President of the Philosophical Society of 

 Washington.] 



