PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETING. XXIII 



may, indeed, perhaps require many generations to accumulate,) 

 geologists will give their assent to the one or the other of these 

 views, or to some intermediate opinion to which both may 

 gradually converge? 



" On the other hand — to take an example from a science with 

 which I have had a professional concern — the theory that cry- 

 stalline bodies are composed of ultimate molecules which have 

 a definite and constant geometrical form, may properly and 

 philosophically be adopted, so far as we can, by means of it, 

 reduce to rules the actually occurring secondary faces of such 

 substances. But if we assume the doctrine of svich an atomic 

 composition, and then form imaginary arrangements of these 

 atoms, and enunciate these as explanations of dimorphism, 

 or plesiomorphism, or any other apparent exception to the 

 general principle, we proceed, as appears to me, unphilosophi- 

 cally. Let us collect and classify the facts of dimorphism and 

 plesiomorphism, and see what rules they follow, and we may 

 then hope to discern whether our atomic theory of crystalline 

 molecules is tenable, and what modifications of it these cases, 

 uncontemplated in its original formation, now demand. 



" I will not now attempt to draw forth other lessons which 

 the Report of last year may supply for our future guidance ; 

 although such offer themselves, and will undoubtedly aflfect 

 the spirit of our proceedings during this Meeting. But there 

 is a reflexion belonging to what I may call the morals of science, 

 which seems to me to lie on the face of this Report, and which 

 I cannot prevail upon myself to pass over. In looking steadily 

 at the past history and present state of physical knowledge, we 

 cannot, I think, avoid being struck with this thought, — How 

 little is done and how much remains to do ;— and again, not- 

 withstanding this, how much we owe to the great philosophers 

 who have preceded us. It is sometimes advanced as a charge 

 against the studies of modern science, that they give men an 

 overweening opinion of their own acquirements, of the supe- 

 riority of the present generation, and of the intellectual power 

 and progress of man ; — that they make men confident and con- 

 temptuous, vain and proud. That they never do this, would 

 be much to say of these or of any other studies ; but, assuredly, 

 those must read the history of science with strange preposses- 

 sions who find in it an aliment for such feelings. What is the 

 picture which we have had presented to us ? Among all the 

 attempts of man to systematize and complete his knowledge, 

 there is one science. Astronomy, in which he may be considered 

 to have been successful ; he has there attained a general and 

 certain theory : for this success, the labour of the most highly 



