PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



JANUARY, 1895. 



It has become the custom of late years for the president of 

 such societies as this to review at annual meetings the history 

 of recent investigations in some particular field of study. I 

 might have bent myself to this task with special reference to 

 the science in which I am most interested, but for the fact that 

 the President of the Australasian Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science last year chose this subject for his inaugural 

 address, and there is little to add to his thorough and masterly 

 account of the progress of geology in Australasia. The circum- 

 stance that we hope for the first time this week to welcome the 

 members of the Association to Queensland, suggests that I 

 should so far depart from the usual custom as to endeavour to 

 enforce the claims of science to be regarded as the higher 

 utilitarianism. 



While everyone is ready to admit, in a general way, the 

 truth of the hackneyed adage that " Knowledge is power," it 

 will be granted by most people that there are some exceptions, 

 that there are some kinds of knowledge which are unprofitable. 

 On the other hand, when we see even such an institution as the 

 Australasian Association described by a satirical writer as the 

 " Society for the Propagation of Useless Knowledge," we venture 

 to plead that the aims of science can only be described in such 

 terms through a species of mental myopia — an incapacity for 

 seeing what lies beyond a narrowly circumscribed limit. 



In these days there is an increasing number of those who, 

 " wiser in their own estimation than seven men who can render 

 a reason," arrogate to themselves the title of " practical men," 

 whose idea is that nothing is worth doing which does not 

 directly put money, or its equivalent, into somebody's pocket. 

 With a little more culture they call themselves utilitarians. 

 But the highest of authorities has laid it down that " Man shall 



