L THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ways to give scope to the creative imagination, and their methods are 

 inherent in their problems. They proceed by experiment and by the 

 logical faculty to a point of rest, of completion. The poet is un- 

 satisfied until his idea is cleared of ambiguity and becomes embodied 

 in a perfect form. The art of the poet is to clothe his idea with 

 beauty and to state it in terms of loveliness, but the art of fine writing 

 — style — need not be absent from the record of scientific achievement: 

 it is, in fact, often present in marked degree. I doubt whether the 

 satisfaction of the poet in finishing his work and perfecting it is 

 essentially different or greater than the satisfaction of the scientist 

 who rounds out his experiment and proves his theory. Such delights 

 cannot be weighed or measured, but they are real and are enjoyed in 

 common by all workers who seek perfection. I now boldl}^ make the 

 statement, which I at first put hesitatingly, in the form of a question, 

 that it is ideality that holds our Society together, and that it was 

 founded truly in the imagination of those who thought that such an 

 institution could flourish in our national life. 



During the past forty years many distinguished men have joined 

 in this Fellowship — some have passed from this to greater honours, 

 and others have passed away, but our methods of election and the 

 keenness which our Fellows show in choosing their future colleagues 

 ensure a steady stream of vigorous thought. 



The subjects comprised in Section II, to which I have the honour 

 to belong, are certainly varied, — English Literature, History, Archae- 

 ology, Sociology, Political Economy and allied subjects; and some of 

 the allied subjects are most important, such as Philosophy and 

 Psychology. While we have this wealth of subject matter, the 

 scientific sections have an advantage over us in that they have greater 

 solidarity of aim, that their groups have clearly-defined objects of 

 study and investigation, and their results are more tangible. We 

 must envy the scientists the excitement of the intellectual world in 

 which they live. Consider for a moment the changes in scientific 

 theory, method, and outlook since the charter members of this 

 Society met together in 1882. It would not become me to endeavour 

 to mention even the most important, but the realm of science appears 

 to an outsider to be a wonderland. By comparison, literature seems 

 to be divorced from life, and we would need to point to some book 

 that had altered definitely the course of the world's thought to match 

 some of the discoveries of Science which have changed our conceptions 

 of the nature of life and of the universe. Perhaps, in making this 

 remark, I am confusing for the moment the function of pure literature 

 with the functions of Science. Literature in its purest form is vowed 



