Proceedings of the Royal Societt/. 301 



which govern the universe. It is, perhaps, said the President, 

 the highest triumph of human intelligence, that proceeding 

 from the consideration of mere unities, or points, lines, and 

 surfaces, it should by gradual generalizations, substitutions, and 

 abstractions, be able to arrive not only at the knowledge of all 

 possible conditions of number and quantity, but likewise of time 

 and motion; and by employing its own pure intellectual creations, 

 in many cases anticipate the results of observation and expe- 

 i"iment, and determine the movements not only of the bodies 

 which form permanent parts of our system, but likewise of 

 those which seem only occasionally to visit it, and which 

 belong as it were to the immensity of space. 



Sir Humphry then paid an eloquent tribute of applause to 

 the zeal and success with which Mr. Herschel had pursued 

 these inquiries, and proceeded to enumerate his mathematical 

 communications to the Royal Society, printed in their Trans- 

 actions. He should not, he said, attempt an analysis of these 

 papers, for they required profound study ; they were especially 

 distinguished by the simplicity of the processes, by perspicuity 

 of arrangement, and by the absence of all metaphysical 

 abstractions, and they proved in the author an intimate ac- 

 quaintance with the works of the great masters of analysis ; 

 he had not, however, limited himself to formulae, but had a 

 higher claim upon the approbation of the Society in their appli- 

 cation ; for, though as a mere exercise, the higher mathematics 

 strengthen the reasoning faculties and afford intellectual 

 pleasure, yet it is in enabling us to solve the physical pheeno- 

 mena of the universe that they have their grandest end and 

 use ; in these respects, said Sir Humphry, they are really 

 power, and they may be compared to that power which we 

 witness in the vapour of water, which passing into the free 

 atmosphere, exhibits only a striking spectacle, but which ap- 

 plied in the steam-engine, becomes the moving principle of 

 the most useful and extensive machinery, and the source of 

 the most important arts of life. 



Sir Humphry then adverted more particularly to Mr. Hors 

 chcl's investigations connected with the polarization of liglitj 



