COMMERCIALISM AND SCIENCE. 



By JAMES D. MACPHAIL, 



Being the Presidential Address, delivered on the 

 19th January, 1906. 



''It is almost as prcsumptious to think you can do nothing as 

 to think you can do every tiling." — Lord Actox. 



" / hold every man a debtor to his profession." — Lord 

 Bacon. 



j^te(. SPECIAL privilege attaches to the occupant of this 

 <^^ presidential chair, inasmuch as he is freed from the fetters 

 of a specialized address, and left to his will to survey and 

 criticise the whole realm of scientific inquiry that usually finds 

 utterance in the meetings of the Society over which he is 

 called upon to preside. And this " fancy-free " position has its 

 advantages if wisely used. One is impressed repeatedly by the 

 fact that it is so easy and so natural for a gentleman iient upon 

 one set line (jf investigation to lead his hearers quickly beyond 



