ADDRESS. XXX1U 



I hear with you the clink of the trowel and the hammer. The builder is busy 

 on the ground from which Bacon cleared the rubbish of centuries, and shaped 

 the vast esplanade, the Moriah of philosophy, into a fit foundation for the 

 subsequent erections of Newton and others. All this is going on, — I may and 

 do congratulate you on the fact ; but it is not for me to describe and particu- 

 larize the progress of the labour. This will be done by the builders them- 

 selves in those sectional departments into which they have divided themselves- 

 There the geologist will teach and learn the results of recent research and 

 adventurous travel. Mr. Lyell is still, I believe, pursuing his investigations 

 in the distant regions of the New World, but Mr. Murchison is returned rich 

 witli the results of his exploration of an interesting portion of the Old, and to 

 tell you how highly and how justly such objects and such labours as his have 

 been appreciated, how honourably to himself they have been assisted and 

 promoted by the sovereign of those vast domains. With the political nature 

 or extent of that sovereign's power we have here nothing to do. Quid belli-, 

 cosus Cantaber aut Scythus cogitet is no subject for our thoughts or disquisi- 

 tions ; but his liberal appreciation of science, as evinced in the recent case of 

 my friend Mr. Murchison, is worthy of our warmest acknowledgments ; and 

 I trust that those distinguished men among his subjects who have honoured 

 us with their presence on this occasion, will bear back to him evidence of the 

 fact, that the followers of science in England duly appreciate his conduct 

 towards their countrymen. You will learn in those Sections through what 

 new channels the electrical inquirer has directed the fluid which Franklin 

 snatched from Heaven, into what shapes, and what service, the grasp of 

 science has compelled the imponderable Proteus it is his mission to enslave 

 to his bidding. The communication and the discussion of these past achieve- 

 ments, the suggestions of new methods and branches of inquiry which spring 

 from such discussion, are among the main purposes of our meeting, and the 

 volumes of this Society's Transactions bear ample witness to their accom- 

 plishment. We have, indeed, no longer to deal with conjecture in this respect ; 

 we have no longer an estimate to show, but an account, a profit, and a divi- 

 dend. It was well for the originators of this Society to enter into calculations 

 of prospective advantages, to foreshow that from personal intercourse and 

 collision, light and heat would be elicited, that dormant energies might be 

 excited in various parts of the country by the nomadic principle of this So- 

 ciety, that scientific operations which require simultaneous exertion on an 

 extensive scale, might derive their necessary element of combination, and 

 their necessary funds, from the voluntary association of men in this shape. 

 All this it was reasonable to predict, and fortunately it is no less easy now to 

 show that the prediction has been in all particulars of importance ratified by 

 the result. It has been observed on more than one former occasion, — it was 

 noticed on the last by my predecessor in the Chair, and at York in 1831, — 

 that in the whole range of physical science Astronomy was the only one which 

 had, generally speaking, derived direct assistance from governments, or even 

 enjoyed what I may call the patronage of society at large. It was also re- 

 marked, with equal force and truth, that many other subjects are specially in 

 need of that species of assistance which the power of the State, or the opu- 

 lence of individuals, can afford to the otherwise solitary man of science. It 

 has come, as you well know, within the scope of the operations of this Society 

 to endeavour, in many instances, to meet and remedy this deficiency. To the 

 science of the stars the first rank in the table of precedence may indeed be 

 cheerfully conceded. Let it walk first in that dignity with which its very 

 nature invests it, but let it not walk alone. The connexion, indeed, between 

 that science and the State, between Greenwich and Downing Street, rests 



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