XXxXil REPORT—1843. 
mence. Some perhaps apparently new principle suggests itself; it is fol- 
lowed, with great expenditure of time and labour, to its remote conse- 
quences, and it turns out to be perfectly barren and worthless. 
One disappointment succeeds another, and years of toil pass away and no 
result. Under these trying circumstances the associations of scientific men 
afford their friendly aid; they soothe disappointment, excite hope, and pre- 
pare the way for redoubled exertion; they call into active existence that 
principle which has been implanted in our nature for the noblest purposes— 
the legitimate ambition of meriting and receiving the approbation of our 
friends and associates. In the ordinary circle of acquaintances, the man en- 
gaged in scientific pursuits will find very few, if any, who can understand 
and appreciate his labours ; but in such associations as this, there are always 
many who see exactly the object aimed at, the difficulties to be encountered, 
and who are ready to acknowledge with gratitude every successful effort in 
the cause of science. 
It is thus, without having recourse to other considerations, that I account 
for the fact, that the associations of scientific men, even when they employ 
no large funds, and perform no gigantic labours, as this Society does, still, by 
their indirect action, accelerate very greatly the progress of scientific dis- 
covery. 
But this Association performs other important services. It appears to me — 
to diffuse over scientific inquiry (if I may so express myself) a salutary in- 
fluence—a healthy vigour of action. What more calculated to dispel that 
feeling of languor and weariness, the consequence of excessive mental labour 
long continued, than the freshening excitement of an interchange of ideas 
with men to whom the same course of research had long been an object of 
interest? What more likely to extinguish any petty jealousy which might 
arise—and scientific men, like other men, have their weaknesses sometimes, 
—than to bring all the parties together in friendly intercourse, where they 
cannot but feel they have a common object, and are working in a common 
cause—the discovery of truth? 
Again: should the mind, pursuing in retirement some single scientific ob- 
ject, raise up to itself notions exaggerated and unreal, of the importance of 
that object, and then, elated and misled by some trifling success, should it 
throw off the garb of humanity, the characteristic of science pursued in a 
proper spirit, what more calculated to dispel the illusion than these meetings, 
where the man, however eminent in that branch of science to which he may 
have devoted his almost exclusive attention, will be sure to find others im- 
mensely his superior in every other department of human knowledge? And 
it is not merely for the sake of individuals engaged in the pursuit of science 
that these consequences are so valuable; it is also for the sake of science 
itself. 
It is important that science should stand before the world in an aspect 
which is not forbidding, and we may rest assured of this, that wherever there 
may be the least trace of petty jealousy, of prejudice, or of pride, the world 
will not be slow to discover it; and as science claims as one of its noblest 
attributes, the power of exalting and enlarging the mind, and of arming it 
against such weaknesses, it will thus be exposed to the charge of having pre- 
ferred pretensions to which it has no just title. 
I will not detain you by enlarging upon the other obvious beneficial con- 
sequences of these meetings, such as the opportunities they afford for the 
free discussion of questions upon which the concentrated knowledge of in- 
dividuals may be brought to bear with so much success—the opportunities 
they afford for the formation of new friendships between scientific men, often 

