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thinking, the delights, the unalloyed happiness they 

 experienced ! It was men such as these that formed the 

 hone and muscle of our Society long years ago, and, 1 would 

 venture to say, still form an equally important element in its 

 present-day constitution. Zoology, botany, geology, ento- 

 mology, history, natural physics, these were and still are the 

 common meeting grounds of professional and non-professional 

 men ; and no small part of the intellectual advancement of the 

 past century may be traced, in our own city at anyrate, to 

 those men who, in their spare time, explored further and further 

 into the realms of the sciences to which I have just made 

 reference. These pioneers were not greedy of their 

 acquisitions, for with lavish hand have they shared their 

 treasures of knowledge with those who have come after them, 

 their sheer love of getting being only equalled by their delight 

 in giving. 



Within well-defined limits the non-professional worker has 

 a distinct place in scientific investigation, and what he lacks 

 in depth, due to want of time and opportunity, he in great 

 measure makes up in breadth, freshness and enthusiasm. But 

 he must never forget his limitations. He would do well to be 

 strong on one side -his commercial side. A man who is only 

 half-and-half, who would try and make his science studies a 

 kind of semi-commercial pursuit, and his business projects an 

 effete form of science, will never succeed — and he does not 

 deserve to do. A man cannot be master in both worlds, and 

 it is as w^ell, first as last, to recognise the fact. On the one 

 hand he works for money, his daily bread ; on the other hand 

 he studies for the sheer love of his subject ; and each of these 

 spheres will be best engaged in when the least friction is 

 occasioned as a result of honest observance of boundary lines. 



More than most men, then, has the non-professional 

 worker need to show a profound spirit of humility. 

 Conceit is a foe to all sound work. We know so little and 

 there is so much to be known that we run the danger of falling 

 into an opposite extreme, and allowing our hearts to fail us by 

 reason of despair. Even a prince of scientists like Lord Kelvin 



