Ixxiv REPORT — 1855. 



researches of one whose name is indissolubly associated with this seat of 

 learning. Here again we have an illustrious example of the mutual relations 

 between science and politics in its best and highest definition. But indeed 

 our convictions are independent of such examples. It is impossible to ap- 

 preciate too highl}' the influence which science is evidently destined to have 

 on the prospects of education, and we look for the time when its methods, 

 as well as its results, will form the subject of teaching, not only as partially it 

 has long done in our Colleges, but also in the humblest of our schools. I 

 feel it to be no small privilege arising out of the Academical Office which this 

 year I have the honour of holding, to be able to assure you on behalf of the 

 University of Glasgow of the deep interest with which we regard your visit, 

 and of our high appreciation of the ends which it is your object to promote. 



It is now fifteen years since the last Meeting of the British Association 

 here. There are probably few even annual meetings of any considerable 

 body of men, which are not marked by some melancholy recollections. Still 

 more must this be the case after the lapse of so long an interval, — one which 

 measures, as is usually reckoned, full half a generation in the life of man. 

 Among the many vacancies in your ranks which that period has occasioned 

 there are some which, from local association or from other causes, are naturally 

 impressed more deeply on the mind than others. I am sure that one vene- 

 rable name will rise to the memory of all who took any interest in the proceed- 

 ings of 1840 ;— of one whose early tastes for natural science had only yielded 

 before his devotion to a yet higher service ; but whose powerful mind still 

 sought to found all his efforts in the cause of religion and humanity on 

 obedience to the eternal laws, which are as sure and steady in their operation 

 over the minds of men, and over the progress of society, as are other laws 

 over the subjects of material change. Who can forget the zeal and more than 

 youthful eagerness with which Dr. Chalmers entered into the discussions of 

 the Statistical section ; and how he saw in those discussions the means of 

 spreading the knowledge of principles which are of vital interest to the 

 welfare of the State ? 



But that name, though the lapse of years has not carried it beyond the re- 

 gion of regret, is one with which we have at least become familiar as belonging 

 to the number of the departed great. Such is not the case with other 

 vacancies, and especially with one which is still affecting us with almost 

 bewildered sorrow, and an abiding sense of irreparable loss. Who shall take 

 up the torch which has fallen from the hand of Edward Forbes? Who shall 

 hold it as he held it to those dark places in the History of Life which Science 

 is striving, perhaps in vain, to penetrate, but which seemed already opening 

 their treasures to his fine and advancing genius? 



But whilst sad recollections are thus forced upon us as regards the life of 

 individual men, we have every reason to be satisfied with the inheritance 

 they have left. Many labourers are gone, but the cause in which they 

 laboured has been steadily gaining ground. Long as fifteen years may be 

 as a period in human life, it is generally but a fraction in the history of 

 mental progress. Yet since the last Meeting of the British Association here, 

 I am greatly mistaken if we cannot mark great strides in the advance of 

 science. I wish. Gentlemen, you had a President more competent than I am 

 to chronicle that advance, and direct the retrospect to a practical and useful 

 end. There are, however, some features so remarkable that I cannot omit 

 referring to them, as well calculated to raise our hopes and stimulate our 

 exertions. In that science which is the oldest and most venerable of all, I 

 mean Astronomy, if there had been nothing else to mark the progress of 

 discovery, the construction and application of Lord Rosse's Great Reflector 



