XXxii EIGHTH REPORT 1838. 



has, from the first, gentlemen, been laid down as the highest object for 

 which we meet, is to supply the great defect under-which science has 

 formerly laboured, of depending solely on individual and insulated 

 efforts, by combining its cultivators into a body politic, calculated to 

 give force and consistence to those efforts, and exercise a powerful 

 influence both on its own members and on the public mind ; thus 

 marshalling a scattered militia into an organized and effective army, 

 and converting desultory incui'sions into a regular and progressive 

 march. The want of some such public authority in matters of science 

 as belongs to an union like the present, could not be more strikingly 

 shown than by the service which, on two occasions, the British Asso- 

 ciation has rendered to astronomy, in obtaining from Government the 

 means of effecting the laborious and expensive reductions of the obser- 

 vations, first of the planets, and lastly of the moon, which had been 

 made by Bradley, Maskelyne, and Pond. The existence and liberal 

 support of the noble establishment at which these observations were 

 made, bore evidence that our rulers have not been insensible to the 

 immense importance of astronomical inquiries to a great maritime 

 nation ; but that so much of the precious ore which had been accu- 

 mulated during the greater part of a century, by the successive labours 

 of the greatest practical astronomers of any age or nation, should have 

 remained unwrought and nearly useless for the highest applications of 

 science, amidst the vain and oft-repeated regrets of those who were 

 the most competent judges of its value, — what does this prove, but that 

 there were no councillors of sufficient weight, number, or influence, 

 not only to offer advice to the Government, but also to secure attention 

 to it when offered ? 



In whatever degree the practical value of science may be beginning 

 to be understood and appreciated among us, business of more proxi- 

 mate interest and more obvious urgency engrosses the attention of our 

 public functionaries and legislators : numerous projects are presented 

 to them rarely reduced to a practical form, among which they know 

 not how to distinguish which are, and which are not deserving of na- 

 tional encouragement; and the consequence has been, with few ex- 

 ceptions, the general discouragement of all, — a consequence neither 

 conducive to the reputation, nor serviceable to the interests of so great 

 a country. But a representation on subjects of science proceeding from 

 such an Association as this bears a public character, and carries with it 

 a degree of weight which does not, and ought not, to attach to indivi- 

 dual applications; and as long as the same judgement and forbeai-ance 

 M'hich have hitherto characterized its course in this respect shall con- 

 tinue to be exercised, — as long as special care is taken to ask nothing 

 of Government but ic/iat it belongs to the national interests or honour 

 to effect, and irhat cannot be effected 'but bij national means, — so long 



