XL VI ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



But who could do this with such a variety of subjects? A list of the 

 titles ; a full index, would be undoubtedly of great value, and would mark 

 thf- epoch in a notable manner. This, as you will see from the pro- 

 gramme for the meeting, has been generously undertaken by the presi- 

 dent of last year, M. B. Suite, and for it we owe him our hearty thanks. 

 But it must always be remembered, that the work of this society, 

 meeting, as it does, only once a year, presents only a small part of tht 

 work done by its members. For a view of the whole we must look, not 

 only in publishers' lists, but in the magazines and journals of this and 

 other countries, especially for papers whose prompt publication is neces- 

 sary. We made a much needed amendment, last year, in our rules so 

 as to secure more speedy puljlication, which will no doubt increase m. 

 future, the number of papers in our Transactions; and to this I would 

 call the attention of members who may not have noticed it. 



It would! be practical proof of the value of a society of this character 

 tT the members severally if we could conveniently collect their evidence, 

 especially that of the senior members, who are able to contrast the past 

 with the present; and submit even a summary'. Perhaps it may be ob- 

 tained in the ffuture. Meanwhile I offer as a contribution my own ex- 

 perience in this and other associations, as of one fully sensible of the con- 

 trast between the ante-society days and the present time. 



Principle of Verification. 



In preparing this matter, the great principle of verification, of which 

 we all know the value for the establishment of truth, whether of hy- 

 potheses, or theories, or quotations, or the meaning of words, in science 

 or in literature, was strikingly brought before me, by instances of its 

 neglect. Neglect too, in perhaps the least expected case, that of the 

 labours of Newton, " qui genus huma,num ingenio superavit," as the 

 quotation from Lucretius, on his monument at Cambridge says, and the 

 general verdict affirms. 



The first two instances that I shall submit, came in my way, quite 

 casually, at the meeting of the American Association, in Montreal, in the 

 same year as that of the foundation of this Society. 



The year after Newton's death, a work entitled the "System of the 

 World " and professing to be by him, was published, giving in English, 

 a kind of popular account of his discoveries. Nearly 140 years after- 

 wards, in 1867, doubts of its genuineness were expressed in Knight's 

 English Cyclopsedia, but apparently no further inquiry was made. 

 Thji'S book had been reprinted and bound up with an English transla- 

 tion of the Principia, giving the impression that it was part of the Prin- 

 cipia. A member of the American Association, having discovered in 



