406 



and religious tendencies, influencing, it may be, his scientific pursuits, 

 and colouring his enunciation of his discoveries. Good biography, 

 the accurate life-like portraiture of a great mind, is one of the highest 

 achievements of literary skill. 



Having thus directed your attention to some of the secondary 

 offices and purposes of the Royal Society, I feel it right to revert to 

 that which the external world will always consider as its primary 

 duty, and by the adequate performance of which, without reference 

 to anything else, the Society must rise or fall in the estimation of 

 men of science at home and abroad ; I mean, of course, the annual 

 publication of a valuable fasciculus of Transactions. To this point 

 the efforts of the leading members of the Society ought to be espe- 

 cially directed. Individually they may have scientific reputations 

 to make : but they have not to create, but to maintain, the reputation 

 of the Society. The papers contributed to our Transactions by 

 Robison, Ivory, Hutton, Playfair, Hope, and Hall, will bear compa- 

 rison with any on like subjects, and of the same date ; while, to 

 mention only one of our living members, the optical papers of Sir 

 David Brewster have carried the name of the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, in conjunction with his own, through the whole of the scien- 

 tific world. 



But though we may be obliged to confess that our more recent 

 publications are inferior to those of an earlier date, this is not to 

 be attributed entirely, if at all, to a falling off in industry or talent 

 among our members. In the first place, there are ebbings and 

 flowings in all intellectual pursuits ; and I am told by those who 

 know more of the matter than I do, that at present the tide of 

 science is not flowing either here or elsewhere. Such turns of the 

 tide in an advancing direction are, I think, generally attributable to 

 the rise of some man of genius who gathers round him, and stimu- 

 lates and directs the minds of those whose talents are of kin to his 

 own genius. In this leading class we may place such men as Lin- 

 naeus, Laplace, and our own Sir Humphry Davy ; and I feel sure 

 that Cambridge has lived and acted for a century and a half, not 

 upon the reputation, but under the abiding influence of Newton and 

 Bentley. If, then, science be at present but slowly progressive, it is, 

 I suppose, because the men of talent, of whom there is no lack, are in 

 want of a man of genius to lead them on. 



Whatever mav be thought of this, there exist causes which ren- 



