& 
a 
— 
i 
+ 
é 
t 
‘é 
x 
2 
ADDRESS. XXXVil 
James Ross amid the Antarctic icebergs may stretch out its arm and bring 
back again our brave navigators. 
Europe, Gentlemen, has now seen a general peace established with only 
partial interruption for the long and unaccustomed period of thirty-three years. 
Happily, science has made its way while the sun of prosperity has shone,— 
for the prosperity of science depends much more on peace and order than on 
favour and patronage. Favour and patronage have, however, not been 
wanting. It is fortunate that the followers of science have so done, for times 
have arrived when it would be idle to expect similar progress. It may be 
flattering and honourable to literature and science to see a great nation 
_ choose her rulers among her poets and astronomers, but to poetry and astro- 
nomy it is undoubtedly an evil. Who can regret the compelled retirement 
from public life that enabled Milton to write his great, his divine poems? 
Who can rejoice that a very different ambition should have taken Newton 
from the studies that gave the world his ‘Principia’? Who can tell how 
much. his Mastership of the Mint may have retarded the advancement of 
science? There cannot be a doubt that many a master mind will now be led 
away from pursuits the most congenial to it by the absorbing and prompting: 
_ demands of political necessity. Still less can it be doubted that the indus- 
- trious ants of science who laboriously bring to her granaries their numerous 
though small additions,—who, in truth, accumulate facts destined for ma- 
terials for the greater minds that reason and systematise,—these industrious 
labourers, I say, will be employed in very different ways. The something 
new which will be sought by them will be political and not scientific: the 
balloting box will be more attractive than the crucible,—the sword of the 
partisan than the hammer of the geologist. These considerations induce me 
to fear that we have no right to expect our Meeting will this year be ho- 
-noured by the presence of many of our friends from abroad, even if the 
distance of this locality did not interpose material difficulties in their way. 
It is not, however, for the sake of accounting for the absence of illustrious 
foreigners that I have made these remarks. It is rather for the purpose of 
observing, that happily philosophers of this country have no such excuse for 
idleness or remissness in carrying on their usual scientific labours. On the 
contrary, they have the stronger reason for doing so. They ought to re- 
member that while England is exempt from the unhappy disturbances of 
other countries, the sacred flame of science is especially confided to them by 
_ the same gracious Providence. that protects their happiness, their freedom, 
their sovereign, their laws, their independence. 
_ Like our soldiers and our sailors, like the ministers of the laws of the land 
and the expounders of the laws of morality and religion, the inquirers into 
* 
i 
