1872.] ( 509 ) 
ABSTRACT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH 
ASSOCIATION. 
BRIGHTON MEETING.—1872. 
Retiring President.—S1r Wit.1aAM TuHomson, LL.D., F.R.S. 
President.—Dr. W1Lu1aAM B. CarPENTER, LL.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. 
HE present Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science, held at Brighton, has been attended with the greatest success. 
The arrangements of the Local Committee were admirable, and the many 
places of interest near to the London of the Sea were freely opened to visitors. 
It is unnecessary to enter into the detail of these arrangements, which could 
interest but few, and which will be well known to many: it is our purpose to 
present the reader with an Abstra@t of the Papers read before each Section. 
With this view we present a consideration of the chief arguments advanced 
in the Inaugural Address of the President. 
“ON MAN AS THE INTERPRETER OF NATURE.” 
It is recorded in earliest history, and remarkable at the present day, that 
man, whilst declaring the faults of his fellows, regards his own with a very 
partial vision. Of this inherent weakness we have a most flagrant example 
in the Address of the President of the British Association to the ladies and 
gentlemen assembled at Brighton to express their interest in the scientific 
discoveries of the last year. Dr. Carpenter has taken upon himself to lead 
them “to the consideration of the mental processes by which are formed those 
fundamental conceptions of matter and force, of cause and effect, of law and 
order, which furnish the basis of all scientific reasoning, and constitute the 
Philosophia prima of Bacon.” Now, by Dr. Carpenter’s own showing, this 
means his individual consideration of the mental processes; in fact, a close 
adherence to the sophistry of judging others by the standard of self; for he 
afterwards says, ‘‘ Nature is what he (each man of science) individually 
believes her to be.”” Thus, that variation in conception which Dr. Carpenter 
asks for in every other branch of science, he denies to mental philosophy. It 
is not enough in his consideration of scientific exactness that the high probability 
that the speGrum of a hydrogen flame means hydrogen when seen by Mr. 
Lockyer in the spe&trum of the sun’s chromosphere, or that Dr. Huggins 
should deduce from the different relative positions of certain lines in the 
spectra of different stars, that those stars are moving from or towards us in 
space—a probability that has been accepted by every scientific man as a 
certainty, upon the assumption that the same lines represent the same 
elements in every luminary (we use Dr. Carpenter’s own propositions through- 
out)—but Dr. Carpenter must point out that these conclusions may or may not 
be corre&. We then have a dire& aspersion cast upon all scientific men and 
all scientific methods. Scientific men are told slightingly what they knew 
before, viz., that they are as human beings fallible and individually liable to 
form erroneous conclusions. Every scientific man shows his appreciation of 
the fallibility of his judgment by carefully guarding against error,and by acknow- 
ledging error when it occurs tohim. But, on the other hand, a philosopher has 
hitherto been considered justified when the same event has happened or happens 
always under the same conditions, in deducing a conclusion which he may 
submit to his fellow-inquirers to stand or fall as it may be true. Yet this tacit 
understanding of human fallibility does not satisfy Dr. Carpenter, who requires 
that we should always qualify our deduction with ‘‘ may or may not be.” Not- 
withstanding, that in no one of Dr. Carpenter’s own works do we find that he 
. adheres to his own formula—and he should remember that even law-makers 
are held bound to keep the laws they make—we cannot, and we think 
scientific men generally cannot, but express the opinion that Dr. Carpenter 
has exceeded all bounds of decorum. He has been guilty of proclaiming 
either that scientific investigation is conducted loosely, or that scientific men 
