

4 aia 
ADDRESS 
BY 
Tue Rev. THOMAS ROMNEY ROBINSON, D.D., 
M.R.LA., F.R.A.S. 
GentLEMEN,—If 1 thought only of myself, the embarrassment which in 
taking the place to which you bave called me IJ feel, would be much increased 
by the way in which my predecessor has spoken of me. Hitherto it has 
been filled by men illustrious in the senate or the field, heads of the societies 
which are the centres of our scientific life, and lodestars of the great insti- 
tutions which have been through many ages the guides of our nation in the 
progress of intellectual cultivation. Against such men, if I weigh myself, I 
know how much I shall be found wanting. But I trust I may be permitted 
to regard myself as the type of a humbler but not useless class, for whom 
this Association was especially devised, and whom it enables to add their 
tribute to swell the general store. For it is not like the forbidden ground 
of romance, a region where heroes only can tread; it is not a mere instru- 
ment for collecting into a focus the light of the suns of the intellectual sky. 
It is rather like those machines which unite the power of many; singly weak, 
but achieving by the union works which would overtask the strength of the 
mightiest individual. In one thing only I will venture to take to myself as 
not unmerited, the praiseof Lord Northampton. In zeal for the welfare of 
. this Association, in intense interest for the accomplishment of its objects I 
4 yield to none ; and if these may suffice, I hope I shall not be found unworthy 
_ of the trust you repose in me. 
Yet, it is no common responsibility with which you have charged me; for 
_ this Association is one of the great powers which the altering phases of the 
_ world have called into action. But a few years since it could not have 
_ existed; and even now some persons are found unable to appreciate its 
