ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 105 
“an aggregate” of cells with the direction of a positive animal 
_life—a reason for which I think is satisfactorily given in the 
Book of. Genesis, chap. 3, v. 22 to 24. 
The foregoing are a few short extracts from the President's 
address, interspersed here and there with some passing observa- 
tions ; for I have felt, in the relation, that I may not only be too 
diffusive, but that Lam trenching somewhat on the province of 
our talented associate and microscopist, Dr. Sommers. I have 
only further to hope that our Institute will soon possess micro- 
scopic instruments of sufficient power to enable him to show us 
all those microscopic experiments and microseopic life, the 
wonders of which have been for some time known to the 
scientists of other countries. From these anticipated resources 
we may, I think, reasonably expect, that in this to us new field 
of investigation, discoveries will be made that will prove our 
high estimation of this valuable branch of Natural Science, and 
perhaps enable us, in an hitherto untried zone of research, to 
contribute a little to what has been already realized. 
Yet, after all the wealth of scientific discovery of our day, and 
our pride i in it, which sometimes amounts to inflation, I think it 
must be conceded by sober reason that human progress, great as 
it is, has reached no further than the threshold of the temple of 
science, the golden pinnacles of which seem now and then to 
greet our vision high above the clouds of obscurity. The motto 
of its votaries must still be “Excelsior!” Still it is not as in the 
past ages, that speculative science, assuming the general ignorance, 
stands for truth, or is received without strict examination. The 
world has had much to unlearn of what had been for long periods 
received as indisputable. The earth, without further contro- 
versy, rolls round the sun, and is no longer a flat surface girdled 
by an unknown ocean. Even within a century revealed religion 
has been placed, I think, upon a surer basis by scientific inter- 
pretation, Geology, with yet much to unfold, so far shows us 
that the world (I say it with reverence) was not made in six 
natural days, although the sequence of creation corresponds more 
exactly with a reasonable and no doubt a more correct interpre- 
tation of the Divine record; and crude deductions with respect 
to the effects of the Noachian deluge, are fast giving way before 
investigations which, without ignoring that great event, or any 
of its phenomena, reasonably attribute much that was presup- 
posed to belong to it, to other and remoter causes. These truths 
are intimately connected with and lie at the foundation of many 
of the grand discoveries of the age. Some of them are dogmas 
