Xii FOURTH REPORT — 1834, 



which devolve upon the Secretaries for Edinburgh, at the desire 

 of my learned colleague Mr. Robison, who, on the other hand, 

 has engaged briefly to state the nature and motives of the prac- 

 tical arrangements for the present meeting, of which he has had 

 the kindness to superintend by far the most laborious part. 



I felt anxious that such a periodical report as I have men- 

 tioned should be continued, because of the necessarily fluctua- 

 ting state of our Body, and the small number of persons who, 

 by circumstances, have been enabled to attend all the meetings, 

 and to become acquainted with the actual operation of a some- 

 what complicated machine ; and I was ready to undertake that 

 duty, because I hoped that I might be able, by an appeal to 

 facts, in the first place, to put in a clear point of view, what 

 has not perhaps been enough insisted on, and has therefore 

 been very generally misunderstood, — the pei'fectly tinique cha- 

 racter of this Association, and the high aims to which its efforts 

 are directed ; and, in the second place, to demonstrate that these 

 aims and objects are in the due course of attainment ; that the 

 members, and especially the projectors of this institution, are 

 fulfilling the pledges, of no common character, which they gave 

 to the public, and this more especially in relation to the pro- 

 ceedings of the past year. 



*' The character of the Association, I have said, may be con- 

 sidered as unique. It is not to be confounded with those nu- 

 merous and flourishing institutions which have sprung up, es- 

 pecially of late years, for the simple diffusion of scientific truths. 

 Such diffusion does not even, properly speaking, include any 

 attempt at extension or accumulation : if in many cases it does 

 promote such extension, it is indirectly, and beyond a doubt 

 has sometimes had the opposite tendency. The intellectual 

 wealth of mankind is no more increased by this operation, than 

 is the weight of the precious metals under the hand of the gold- 

 beater. A greater display may indeed be attained, and a more 

 commodious application to the useful and the elegant purposes 

 of life ; but for actual increase of the stock which may hereafter 

 be fashioned with ease and expedition by the hands of a thou- 

 sand artificers, we must recur to the miner toiling in his solitary 

 nook, and to the labourer who painfully extracts some precious 

 grains from the bed of the torrent. It is the furtherance of this 

 species of productive energy that the British Association claims 

 for its capital object. The diffusion of a taste for science amongst 

 its numerous members is no doubt also one of the most neces- 

 sary and most desirable consequences of the principles upon 

 which it is founded ; but it is not the basis of these principles. 

 To teach those who have never pursued natural knowledge but 



