PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION I. 187 
supplies the requirements of a large and learned section of the 
community, and amply vindicates the science and scholarship of 
the day ; but there is still another class of literature which, from 
its general acceptance, may warrant a brief special notice. I 
refer to the modern novel, which may truly be said to come upon 
us not in single spies but in battalions. Many novels no doubt 
are of little or no worth, yet in others, although no such trans- 
cendant genius as a Scott, a Thackeray or a Dickens writes at 
present, the amount of thoughtful and superior work which not 
only adorns the tale but points a moral, is a distinctly increasing 
quantity. Much of this work, too, has borne good fruit, as by 
its means, even since Dickens wrote, abuses of various kinds 
have been brought under the notice of an indignant public, with 
the effect of securing beneficial reforms. This advance in general 
tone and style affords a reason for the higher position now 
occupied by the novel than was the case, with few exceptions, in 
my early days, when its influence on the youthful mind was 
regarded as so objectionable, that in my own instance at least, 
which I presume was not exceptional, I was generally compelled 
to secure the much coveted volume by means of a somewhat 
questionable character, and snatch a fearful joy by devouring its 
contents in secret. This improvement in a large proportion of 
novels argues a healthier taste in a corresponding proportion of 
the community, and this again is but the natural result of that 
moral and material progress which is so generally evident. It 
has no doubt been the complaint of centuries, and the great 
Roman lyrist, from the frequency with which he is quoted, has 
perhaps. something to answer for in this question, that the world 
is retrograde rather than progressive. But facts alone surely 
confute such a contention, for had every generation lived but to: 
produce a successor worse than itself, it is clear that beings little 
better than savages should now have possession of the earth. 
Yet how different is the reality! Never has there been an age 
in which active and intelligent philanthropy has been so 
conspicuous, nor in which zeal, charity, self-denial, and even life 
itself, have been so freely expended on so vast a scale and on so 
many and such varied objects. It must certainly be admitted it 
cannot yet be said that this is “the best of all possible worlds,” 
nor that the present is superior in every respect to some past ages. 
that can boast the possession of those shining lights in art and 
literature which still glitter through the pages of history. But 
our incalculable superiority to the past is manifest in the diffusion 
of letters, not merely among the favoured few, but broad-cast 
throughout the masses, and it is clear that the cultured intelli- 
gence which is necessarily and increasingly the result, must prove 
a most powerful factor in raising the general level of humanity 
in the present, and in happily rendering a recurrence of “ Dark 
Ages” impossible in the future. Yet, although the novel 
