ADDRESS 



THE DUKE OF ARGYLL, F.R.S. 



Gentlemen of the British Association, 



I KNOW, Gentlemen, that the duty of presiding over this Meeting of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science, has been assigned to 

 me mainly in consequence of my local connexion with the district and City in 

 which we are now assembled. It cannot therefore be departing from the 

 special duty of that position, if I addi'ess you in the first place as one of those 

 who are receiving the honour of your visit. I am sure I cannot express in 

 terms too warm the feelings of this great community. It would be strange 

 indeed if Glasgow did not hold out to you a cordial reception. Here, if 

 anywhere, we have reason to honour Science, and to welcome the men whose 

 lives are devoted to its pursuit. The West of Scotland has itself contributed 

 not a few illustrious names to the number of those who have enlarged the 

 boundaries of knowledge, or have given fruitful application to principles 

 already known. I need not dwell on the fact that it was in this valley of the 

 Clyde that the patient genius of Watt perfected the mechanism which first 

 gave complete control over the powers of steam ; and that it was on these 

 waters too that those powers were first applied in a manner which has given 

 new wings to commerce, and is now afl'ecting not less decisively the terrible 

 operations of war. These are but single examples, more striking and palpable 

 than others, of the dependence of the Arts upon the advance of Science. 

 This, however, is a dependence which I am sure the citizens of Glasgow 

 would be the first to acknowledge, and which no doubt, with them as with 

 all men, must be an important element in the value which they set upon 

 physical research. But I am sure I should deeply wrong the intelligence of 

 the people of Glasgow, if I were to represent them as measuring the value of 

 science by no other standard than its immediate applicability to commercial 

 purposes. They seek to honour science for its own sake, and to encourage 

 the desire of knowledge as in itself one of the noblest instincts of our nature. 

 It is my duty also, Gentlemen, to speak on behalf of a special body — one of 

 which Glasgow has so much reason to be proud — I mean its ancient and vene- 

 rable University. If the mechanical arts owe to this district of Scotland the 

 greatest impulse they have ever yet received, it is not less true that our 

 knowledge of the laws which regulate the pursuits of industry, and determine 

 the distribution of the " Wealth of Nations," has been almost founded on the 



