INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
By Proressor W. C. Wiiuiamson, F.R.S., 
President of the Section. 
Printed from a Short-hand Report by John Slagg, Esq., 
the Secretary of the Section. 
GentLemMeN, —I will not waste your time in listening 
to apologies for the position I occupy to night; sufficient 
that the request of your Council to inaugurate your pro- 
ceedings by an Introductory Address, was one that I did 
not feel justified in declining; the more so since your 
object is one in which I naturally feel a deep interest. 
I have hailed with much pleasure the formation of a 
Microscopic Society ; and I think we have wisely deter- 
mined that it shall be a section of a still older institution, 
which I hope it will aid im antagonizing those materialistic 
tendencies that abound in this mercantile community. 
Hitherto the devotion of all our energies to the accumula- 
tion of wealth and material comforts has been too promi- 
nent a characteristic of Manchester society, to an undue 
exclusion of more elevating and soul-inspiring objects. 
Where such tendencies increase, and continue dominant, 
either in nations or individuals, we cannot be at a loss to 
foretel the issue. All former examples recorded in the 
world’s history have shewn that as soon as a people make 
wealth and luxury their sole object of pursuit, the result is 
rottenness, and their ultimate fall merely a question of 
time. Any project, therefore, calculated to antagonize 
such tendencies cannot be received without extreme satis- 
