y ja ia 
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ADDRESS. — XXKV- 
those publications contain in latter years, have originated in the proceedings 
of our Sections. Yet, though we have so much in common with them, it 
would be a gross error to confound us with them, or to imagine that any 
inerease of their activity or any change in their management could supersede 
Our Office. Not the least important part of it refers to persons entirely un- 
cotinected with them, persons who have struggled after knowledge in dif- 
ficulty and obscurity, whose diffidence would shrink from the distinction 
belonging to such connection, or even who, without any scientific acquire- 
ments, have yet a reverence for them, a perception of their worth. Such 
we cah count by thousands; and every one of them, I am confident, has 
been profited by the influence which we have exerted on his mind. We 
have gone still further, and admitted ladies as Associates; exciting the 
surprise and perhaps scorn of those who think women fit only for household 
cares or showy accomplishments: and we have done well; for without re- 
ferring to Mrs. Somerville, Mrs. Marcet, ot others whom I would name 
were they not present, I have myself known some whose proficiency in’ 
several of our departments might have put many an F.R.S. to shame, who 
were not to be surpassed in all the graces of their sex, and were perfect in 
all the relations of domestic life. Man cannot ascend in the scale of intel- 
lectual power unless woman rises with him. Another advantage which we 
_ possess above stationary societies is, our mobility ; we can pursue our labours 
wherever much is to be learnt or many are to be taught. From the Uni- 
versities, the seats of abstract science, we have ranged to the mighty emporia 
of GreatBritain, to the treasure-houses of its mineral and metallurgic wealth, 
to the marvellous palaces of its industrial art; and at evety step of our 
progress, even the most highly gifted and richly stored among us have learned 
new facts, seen opening before them new lines of thought, and met new men. 
It is a glorious discipline, the very one which Homer attributes to the wisest 
_ of his heroes: to\\dy avOprwy ier dorea kai voov éyyw. And let us hope; 
that, in the expressive imagery of the New Atlantis, we also may be “ dowry 
men” and “ merchants of light ;” that they whose seats become the marts of 
our intellectual commerce may receive in it their share df the illumination 
which we seek; and that by imparting to them.new ideas, by correcting 
ertor, by opening to them more fully the laws which rule those elemental 
powers that serve them in works of microscopic beauty or giant might—we 
may endow them with gifts which shall both increase the reward of their 
own industry and enterprise, and augment the prosperity and glory of our 
country. 
» Onr Association has been tried during eighteen years, and with a success 
| 's which has exceeded by far what its most ardent friends had ventured to 

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