1 903-1904.] Presidential Address. 149 



partly by sight, and in a Society like ours the more we in- 

 vestigate by close observation, microscopic or otherwise, by 

 patient study, and in a teachable spirit, the more wUl'our 

 faith be strengthened, the less will we be led by a blind 

 baseless superstition. In the natural world as in the spiritual,' 

 what we know not now we shall know hereafter; I^ature 

 reveals herself, evolves herself, to the patient observer and 

 ardent student who follows on to know her secrets and who 

 is fascinated by the pursuit. 



Henry Seton Merriman, in his ' Sowers,' says : « A Eussian 

 forest in winter is one of N"ature's places of worship." " There 

 are," he continues, "some such places in the world where 

 Nature seems to stand in the presence of Deity ; a sunrise at 

 sea, night on a snow mountain, mid-day in a Eussian forest in 

 winter," and he adds— and this is what I desire to emphasise 

 —"these places and these times are good for convalescent 

 atheists and such as pose as unbelievers, the cheapest form 

 of notoriety." Professor Masson, too, has said : " It is to the 

 pale solitary, stretched by his cave in the desert or on the 

 mountain, with his beechen bowl of simple water beside him, 

 or meditating alone in his quiet watch-tower, that Nature 

 whispers her sublimer secrets and that the lost knowledge of 

 things comes once more in visions and in dreams." 



Connected as we are with such a Society as ours and 

 doing work of the kind indicated, it well becomes each one of 

 us to seek increasing knowledge, increasing proficiency, and 

 an increasing desire to stimulate others in the good work by 

 doing all we can to widen and deepen interest therein. While 

 we cannot all be masters we may be disciples, taking in what 

 we hear at our winter sessional meetings and what we see 

 at our summer field excursions. The chair of the master is 

 reached by way of the bench of the disciple. In our Society 

 —in Nature itself— change is the evidence of life and pro- 

 gress. We pass on from one degree of knowledge, from one 

 attainment, to another, with the comforting, stimulating as- 

 surance that our "little Hfe" here is all too short in which 

 to exhaust the subjects the study of which is the object of 

 our Society. I would therefore urge each and all of you to 

 do your best to bring forward communications, to attend our 

 meetings as regularly as possible, to take part in the discus- 



