( Ixxiv ) 



Oxford, in June 1873, while I did not matriculate until October 

 of the same year, so that, as undergraduates, we never saw 

 each other. 



Before speaking of the losses which have fallen so heavily 

 upon our community during 1903, — the bi'other Fellows who 

 hav^e gone from our midst, — I feel bound to allude to the 

 grief which we share with the whole intellectual world at 

 the passing away, towards the close of the old year, of 

 the great thinker to whom we owe far moie than Ave can 

 realise. I well remember the siidden access of light received 

 when, between the age of seventeen and eighteen, Herbert 

 Spencer's works were first placed in my hands. The whole of 

 science seemed illuminated, the whole ovitlook broadened. It 

 was the most sudden and by far the greatest intellectual 

 awakening I have ever experienced. And, as we know well, 

 it has been the same Avith thousands. After Shakespeare, no 

 man has done more to bring together the English* of the 

 Old World and the New. And not only among ourselves, 

 but everywhere in the civilised world the writings of Herbert 

 Spencer have stirred enthusiasm and compelled admiration. 

 They have left strong, indelible, beneficent after-effects even 

 in those who are unable to believe in the enduring stability 

 of the Synthetic Philosophy — a fabric as fair and stately as 

 any created by the mind of man. 



Since the above paragraph was Avritten Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer's will has been made known in the Times for January 

 14th. I am sure that every Fellow of our Society keenly 

 appreciates the expression of confidence which is implied in 

 the gift which will hereafter be offered to us by the Trustees 

 of the will — a gift which we shall regard as a solemn trust, 

 to be so carried out as to secure the greatest possible advantage 

 to the science we serve. 



Frederick Bates, F.E.S., joined the Society as a "sub- 

 scriber " in 1867. Subsequently AvithdraAving, he again 

 entered the Society as a Fellow in 1897. He Avas born at 

 Leicester in 1829, and his death occurred at Chiswick on the 

 6th of October, in his 74th year. Like his distinguished 



* For the justification of this use of the word see Sir Michael Foster's 

 Presidential Address to Section D of the British Association at Toronto 

 (Report for 1897). 



