PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. Xll 



When man wakes to eonseiousnoss in tliis material world, he 

 finds himself one of many varied oro^anisms, stamped with one 

 general plan, automatic in ]>art. and also in possession of a limited 

 amount of free-will and action. As he becomes sensible of his 

 position, and his bodily wants are met, he begins to realize he is not 

 so very independent or all-])()werful. and that he is living on a 

 l)orderland of mysteries, surrounded by the inexplicable, and when 

 conddered from a purely personal point of view, by what seem 

 malevolent as well as benign influences. The limitation to his 

 powers meets him on every hand, and he finds his very existence 

 depends on the range of the forces to which he is exposed being 

 circumscribed. He finds, moreover, his consciousness of sensation 

 also has its limits, as of sound proceeding from pulsations only 

 within fixed amplitude and frequency, the limit of perception vary- 

 ing somewhat with the individual, in harmony with the variability 

 of moderate degree everywhere observable in nature. Light and 

 heat also have to be restricted in their range if they are to be 

 utilized by man, while excess of the latter is made evident beyond 

 doubt by destructitm of tissue. 



At times man glories in the freedom he possesses, and especially 

 when he makes subservient to himself beings weaker or mentally 

 less endowed, beings whose sum of animal existence is to eat and to 

 be eaten, for few individuals in the ferine state escape the latter 

 condition, and, as a matter of fact, few animals of any condition. 



As consciousness develops, and with a mind free of anxiety for 

 immediate wants, he seeks to know who and what he is in this 

 world's economy, whence he has come, and whither will he go. His 

 untrained perceptions failing him beyond the compass of self- 

 preservation, he consults his fellows for their knowledge of these 

 matters. He becomes a student and so far as his enquiries and 

 experiments are systematic, a student of science. 



Here, as in all cases of disturbance, whether physical or mental, 

 opposition is met with, and the student of truth has to contend 

 with errors of observation and assumption of conclusions unproved. 

 The latter especially hampers Mm, for recognizing his seeming 

 hopelefs ignorance of much there is about him, he is only too ready 



