Vm PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



not live by bread alone " ; and to the utilitarian I would point 

 out that science is a utilitarianism which takes no narrow view 

 of its duties to itself, and yet is steadily making for the mental 

 and physical advancement of the human race. It has struck 

 me that the present is a peculiarly appropriate time for justifying 

 the existence of this and similar societies devoted to the pursuit 

 of science for its own sake. 



It may be said that many scientific discoveries have been 

 mere accidents, but such accidents only happen to, or are only 

 available for those whose study to " know things by their 

 causes," as Bacon said, " vere scire estpei- camas scire." Thales, 

 twenty-five centuries ago, made the first recorded observation on 

 the electrical properties of amber, but seventeen more centuries had 

 to elapse before the next step forward was made in the progress of 

 electrical science. Now and again a happy inspiration may have 

 helped such men as Galvani or Franklin to avail themselves of a 

 hint thrown in their way by an apparent accident ; but by far the 

 greatest advances in science have been made by men who 

 pursued their studies in philosophic calm, seeing perhaps as 

 their goal some high end in view, although in many cases not 

 even dreaming of the ultimate result of the truths they discovered. 

 When Charles II. " mightily laughed " at the persistent efforts 

 of the young Koyal Society to "weigh ayre," as recorded in 

 Pepys' Diary, neither the Kmg nor the Historian nor the savants 

 themselves could guess at the magnitude of the structure which, 

 in two centuries more, would be raised upon the foundation the 

 Royal Society was laying amidst the noisy laughter of the merry 

 monarch who was so easily amused. Probably no European 

 government in the beginning of the seventeenth century would 

 have given five pounds for the information, and yet at the end of 

 the nineteenth it is doubtful if the treasury of any existing state 

 could purchase benefits equal to those which are known to have 

 been derived from a correct estimation of atmospheric pressure, 

 and the deductions which have been made from that datum. 



Many inventions, again, are distinctly traceable to the earnest 

 application of some well equipped mind to the supply of a 

 specific want. Thus, the necessity for the propulsion of ships 

 independently of winds and currents sets a practical man think- 



