liv PROCEEDINGS. 
longer expected at smaller or greater intervals in the future those brilliant 
generalizations which dazzle the multitude and form an epoch in the 
history of man. 
We may perhaps have met with some indications that there are people 
who think that an Institute of Science such as ours should devote itself 
to the grand problems cf human life in such a manner as to electrify the 
public, convince the sceptic, and reform human society on lines based on 
indubitable principles. Such persons seem to expect that if scientific 
men are of any use they could by the application of their thinking 
powers discover these grand principles and demonstrate them with the 
potency of universal conviction. They are evidently unaware of the 
most striking fact in the history of man, that from the beginning of 
society up to their own appearance in the role of thinkers, men have been 
trying to solve these problems by thinking, striving to draw knowledge 
out of brains into which the knowledge never entered. The deductive 
metaphysical philosophers of old are still being produced, more numerous 
than ever if not more powerful, and the ancient problems are not yet 
solved. 
We have never yet gained any advantage by thinking out what 
nature should be. We have to find out what it is, and so faras we know 
what it is we can utilize it according to our limitations. And the solutions 
of the so-called grand problems are often dependent on what might be 
called the humblest facts. The grandness of a truth discovered cannot 
be known until the full train of its effects can be seen ; so that to the 
truth seeker any truth may well be considered grand. It is a sound 
principle for each to seek whatever truch is nearest him, so that he may 
add it to the common stock which is now becoming the broad base of 
the so-called grand truths which humanity has learned to applaud after 
a period of suspicion. 
This is the principle on which our Institute is working. The geologist 
is near to the discovery of new geological facts by reason of his previously 
obtained geological knowledge and his opportunities of studying for 
years his own local ground. He exercises his special powers with the 
result of obtaining further knowledge which through our publications are 
made the property of the truth-seekers throughout the world. And so 
with each of us. We have our own special opportunities for some kind 
of exact observations on points not hitherto exactly observed, and in 
making such observations we are as deserving as he who makes the final 
