114 
body, and who are qualified, by intellect and education, to take an 
enlarged yet not exaggerated view-of the importance of a central 
society. I know that many other, and indeed more appropriate 
outlets exist, for the publication of curious, isolated, or semi-iso- 
lated facts: but it is not so much remarkable facts, as remarkable 
views, that I wish to see communicated to us, and through us to 
the world; although such views ought, of course, to be illustrated 
and confirmed by facts. 
It seems possible, that in each of the three great divisions of 
science already enumerated, our Transactions may be enriched in 
future, through a judicious system of rewards, (of the kinds to 
which I lately alluded,) intended to encourage contributions of a 
more elaborate kind than usual, from strangers as well as from 
members of our body. It has appeared, for example, to some 
members of your Council, and to me, that for each of those three 
divisions of science a triennial prize might be given ; these three 
triennial prizes succeeding each other in such rotation, for mathe- 
matics, physics, and physiology, that a prize should be awarded 
every year, on some one principal class of scientific subjects, for 
the best essay which had been communicated for publication, on 
any subject of that class, whether by a member or by a stranger, 
curing the three preceding years. A plan of this sort has been 
lately tried, and (it would seem) with advantage, in the distri- 
bution of the Royal Medals entrusted by the late King* to the Royal 
Society of London; and the principle is not unsanctioned by you, 
that a greater range of investigation may sometimes be allowed to 
the authors of prize-essays, than the terms of an ordinary prize- 
question would allow. So that it only remains for your Council to 
consider and report to you, as they are likely soon to do, to what 
extent this principle may advantageously be pushed, and by what 
regulations it may conveniently be carried into effect. In saying 
this, I do not presume to pronounce that it is expedient to give up 
entirely the system of proposing occasionally prize-questions, of a 
much more definite kind than those to which I have been referring 
* And continued by her present Majesty : whose gracious intention of becoming 
Patroness of the Royal Irish Academy has been made known since the delivery of 
this Address.—Note by PRESIDENT. 
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