XXXil REPORT—1845. 
civilization advances, we feel constantly more and more strongly, that, after 
the great objects of national defence, the stability of our institutions, the due 
administration of justice, and the healthy maintenance of our social state, are 
provided for, there is no object greater and more noble—none more worthy 
of national eflort—than the furtherance of science. Indeed, there is no surer 
test of the civilization of an age or nation than the degree in which this con- 
viction is felt. Among Englishmen it has been for a long time steadily in- 
creasing, and may now be regarded as universal among educated men of all 
classes. No government, and least of all a British government, can be in- 
sensible to the general prevalence of a sentiment of this kind ; and it is our 
good fortune, and has been so for several years, to have a government, (no 
matter what its denomination as respects party), impressible with such con- 
siderations, and really desirous to aid the forward struggle of intellect by 
placing at its disposal the material means of its advances. 
But to do so with effect, it is necessary to be thoroughly well-informed. 
The mere knowledge that such a disposition exists, is sufficient to surround 
those in power with every form of extravagant pretension. And even if this 
were not so, the number of competing claims, which cannot be all satisfied, 
can only harass and bewilder, unless there be somewhere seated a discrimi- 
nating and selecting judgement, which, among many important claims, shall 
fix upon the most important, and urge them with the weight of well-esta- 
blished character. I know not where such a selecting judgement can be so 
confidently looked for as in the great scientific bodies of the country, each 
in its own department, and in this Association, constituted, in great measure, 
out of, and so representing them all, and numbering besides, among its mem- 
bers, abundance of men of excellent science and enlightened minds who be- 
long to none of them. The constitution of such a body is the guarantee both 
for the general soundness of its recommendations, and for the due weighing 
of their comparative importance, should ever the claims of different branches 
of science come into competition with each other. 
In performing this most important office of suggesting channels through 
which the fertilizing streams of national munificence can be most usefully 
conveyed over the immense and varied fields of scientific culture, it be- 
comes us, in the first place, to be so fully impressed with a sense of duty 
to the great cause for which we are assembled, as not to hesitate for an instant 
in making a recommendation of whose propriety we are satisfied, on them ere 
ground that the aid required is of great and even of unusual magnitude. 
And on the other hand, keeping within certain reasonable limits of total 
amount, which each individual must estimate for himself, and which it would 
be unwise and indeed impossible to express in terms, it will be at once felt 
that economy in asking is quite as high a “ distributive virtue” as economy in 
granting, and that every pound recommended unnecessarily is so mueh cha- 
racter thrown away. I make these observations because the principles they 
contain cannot be too frequently impressed, and by no means because I con- 
sider them to have been overstepped in any part of our conduct hitherto. In 
the next place, it should be borne in mind that, in recommending to Govern- 
ment, not a mere grant of money, but a scientific enterprise or a national 
establishment, whether temporary or permanent, not only is it our duty so to 
place it before them that its grounds of recommendation shall be thoroughly 
intelligible, but that its whole proposed extent shall be seen; or at least if 
that cannot be, that it should be clearly stated to be the possible commence- 
ment of something more extensive ; and besides, that the printing and publi- 
cation of results should, in every such case, be made an express part of the 
recommendation. And, again, we must not forget that our interest in the 
matter does not cease with such publication. It becomes our duty to forward, 
