176 



ADDRESS 



Read before the Members of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, at their 

 Annual Meeting, held in Hereford, January 19th, 1857, by Hewett 

 Wheatley, Esp., President. 



Gentlemen. — A blind man may be led through a picture gallery, and 

 therefore truly say — I have been there ! How many who possess the blessing 

 of sight, thus walk through nature during a long life, and sill they can do at last 

 is to whimper out — ^we have been there ! Such societies as ours tend directly 

 to the repression of that great evil, intellect unexercised. By such societies 

 many a germ that might otherwise have remained dormant, may be fostered 

 into vitality. By such, may old misunderstandings be uprooted, and planting 

 new ones be avoided — the purely fanciful be exposed — the hint of former days in- 

 vestigated — and true theories be built on the only sure foundation — practical 

 labour. Instead of first inventing a system, and then, with every paternal 

 predisposition in its favour — with atom after atom piled up by vanity to sub- 

 stantiate it, nature is herself distorted to support imagination— instead of this, 

 we practise first suid theorize afterwards. The child of solitude, the offspring of 

 fancy, born in the student's closet, can never be the true interpreter of any one 

 page in the volume of Natural History. No ! We must go forth unbiased by 

 preconception, and — hardest lesson of all — isolating oneself from self — thus 

 must we go forth into nature — air, earth, rock, and water our books, and God 

 our teacher ; thus must we go forth — see, labour, and then decide. The very 

 title of our Society inculcates this doctrine — The Naturalists' Field Club. 

 It extends our operations — our active and practical operations — over many 

 branches ; from the insect that sports its life of an hour — from the humblest 

 herb that rejoices in the glorious light of Heaven — to the vast marvels of geology 

 — to the sublimity of the Great Creator's works. I repeat, it extends our practical 

 operations ; and herein, the superiority of these Societies. There is less risk 

 of hasty and rash decisions — quod cito fit, cito peril. Theophrastus doubted the 

 wondrous architecture of the universe, because he imagined that the luminous 

 appearance from the stars of the galaxy was nothing but the light which shone 

 through a crevice of the badly joined hemispheres ! The wildest of modern 

 theorists would have been hissed for such an absurdity : yet there is no incon- 

 siderable amount of error to be overcome, not less than of discoveries to be 

 made ; and of those already made, to be further illustrated and confirmed. 



Though I cannot consider mind as cumulative, science certainly is ; and 

 the annual publication of scientific papers, in connection with the transactions 

 of each Society, is commendable and useful. But there is another source of 

 utility, both highly inteiesting and highly instructive, and whose benefits are as 

 obvious as those of the steam engine and the gas lamp — a judiciously selected 

 and well kept Museum ; the formation of which is contemplated by this Club ; 

 and will, I trust, be carried out with equal liberality and clearness of detail. 



