PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 319 



whole of Dr. Bullax^'s admirable address, but we must be content 

 to give the conclusion only : 



" The social aspect of our Society commends it. It is a pleasant 

 Avay of spending an evening where there is a scientific object of 

 natural interest, and, at the same time, social gathering of many 

 having the same tastes and objects, and therefore the same sympa- 

 thies. The anatomj'- of an insect, too, is a more harmless occu- 

 pation than the minute dissection of a neighbour's natural history. 

 Tea and coifee, pleasant chat with those of like tastes, and then 

 the table covered with microscopes, and the specimens explained 

 by one, and 'passed round for each to examine, calling out ani- 

 mated talk on subjects worth discussing, or a short paper read and 

 discussed on the subject illustrated, are civilizing. For science is 

 a civilizer. It refines the tastes and elevates the thoughts, as it 

 is the search after truth for truth's own sake. And in this age, 

 when the progress of the nation and of the world is estimated by 

 the money value of expoi'ts and imports (and in this aspect the 

 world's progress is prodigious and annually increasing), the danger 

 must lie in estimating all things in reference to money rather than 

 to truth. Now, science is a counteracting force. It neither 

 brings wealth to its true cultivators, nor can wealth hxij scientific 

 tastes nor scientific fame. It belongs to a higher region than " the 

 diggins." It must breathe " a purer ether, a diviner air." And 

 those who are engrossed in commerce woidd often do well, for 

 their own content and happiness, by seeking, in the recreations 

 of science, a complete change of action, thought, and feeling. Ob- 

 viously the eye-service which the microscope requires trains the 

 eye to minute and discriminative observation, and the hand to de- 

 licate accuracy. It leads on, if used scientifically, to the improve- 

 ment of the scientific powers. The memory, the investigation of 

 causes, the estimation of evidence, the power of distinguishing and 

 of generalizing may be called into activity. But the mind has 

 other and deeper needs than these. The senses lead to the 

 awakening and' culture of deeper powers inherent in the soul 

 itself, and the microscope may excite and cultivate, not only the 

 sense of the true, but of the beautiful. Constable, the landscape- 

 painter, said that, pictorially, nothing in nature was ugly ; and 

 surely we may say the same microscopically. The higher the 

 magnifying powers, the more minutely extensive the investigations, 

 the more beauty do we see. Even in the unhealthy secretions, 

 in what look to the unscientific eye like repulsive fluids, in the 

 very disorganizations which slowly ruin this goodly human frame, 

 the microscope discovers forms of the highest geometrical accu- 

 racy, as well as of the most delicate beauty. And this beauty and 

 consummate finish are everywhere, and are found farther and 

 deeper as our powers increase of observing them. Here, too, at 

 every step, Ave find the limitation of our own powers and the illi- 

 mitable field of nature ; the infinite contrasting with our finite, 

 teaching us 'the moral lesson of science — humility.' " 



