PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 21 
deayours to understand them. They are portals that open new worlds to 
your mind, ‘They will shed pleasant gleamings on the path of life. They 
will meet you like old friends in your walks of recreation. They have glad- 
dened the prisoner’s solitary cell. ‘I have no taste for these pursuits,” 
said one who passed through creation with his eyes shut. You have no 
taste simply because you have no knowledge, and will not seek to possess it. 
As “full many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its 
sweetness on the desert air,” so there is many a mind with tastes and 
talents equal to the grandest study of natural phenomena, yet they haye 
never been called into exercise. Pascal was so dull a boy at school, 
that his monk-teachers almost gaye him up in despair. ‘Try him,”’ said 
one “in Euclid,’’ and thus developed one of the world’s greatest mathe- 
maticians. O, commence the glorious study of nature’s facts and laws. 
You know not what delights are in reserve for you. You know not what 
attainments you may make. You know not what facts you may discover. 
You know not what great principles you may eliminate or establish. 
Though we cannot all hope to obtain a world-wide reputation as astronomers, 
or be recognised in society as accomplished comparative anatomists,; 
though we may not all be endowed with that wondrous mental power 
called genius, that reads as with the eye of inspiration the deep arcana 
of nature’s unuttered mysteries,—yet if not original thinkers, we may follow 
in the track of those pioneers of thought and knowledge. Some men labour 
and others enter into their labours. A child may now understand some- 
thing of those great principles which Newton’s mighty brain elaborated 
out. The results of an Owen or Huxley may become our own, may fill us 
with wonder and pleasure, and may be enjoyed with comparatively little 
effort, Thus the founders of science and the disciples of science seem to 
stand on common ground, and gaze with common enjoyment on the glorious 
scenes that open to the mind. 
“ Oh, Nature! with delight I gaze on thee ! 
For to my soul, thou’rt like the ladder seen 
By Isaac’s dreaming son, a path direct 
By which the raptured vision can ascend 
From earth to heaven, from finite things to Him 
The Infinite, who from the boundless waste 
Of nothingness, or from the dark abyss 
Of Chaos, called them forth; sinee all I see 
Through all th’ illimitable scenes of space, 
To me the indelible impression bears 
Of power and grace Divine.” 
FOURTH SUMMER SESSION,—1868. 
First Fietp Day, Tusspay, June 97H, 
The proceedings commenced with a Ramble to Hollow-lane and Green- 
street, the members leaying the National Schools at three p.m. The attend- 
