4114 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION B. 
We tried to begin at the beginning; they rather began at 
the end. 
When we consider the remarkable sagacity of their specu- 
lations, we are almost tempted to believe that they reached 
as far as observation and reasoning alone could lead them. 
But this is not so. Systematic observation of nature, with- 
out any aid from experiment, has very great possibilities. 
How much about light, for instance, could be learnt without 
the aid of any further experiment than what nature daily 
and hourly provides for us? We may remind ourselves 
that the natural world is an experimental (say demonstra 
tional) chemical, physical, physiological, &c., laboratory for 
all who are there to see; with constantly-varying con- 
ditions of experiment, within the natural limits; and we can 
acquire much sound science by observing accurately, and 
learning to interpret our observations. We are -not 
satisfied, however, with simply walking through these labora- 
tories, where so much work is being carried on by unseen 
fingers, but we insist upon handling the appliances, devising 
the experiments, arranging their terms, and putting our own 
questions straight to nature. 
There is a deep-seated tendency in all of us to regard 
with filial leniency the mental limitations of our fathers 
before us, who, through no fault of their own, were born and 
flourished in the dark ages of 50 or 40 or 30 or 20 years 
ago. How much more is this attitude of mind intensified 
when we patronise even the most stalwart -intellects amongst 
those we are accustomed to call the ancients? We have 
been finding out a good deal about these ancients lately, 
and we are likely to find out a very great: deal more. We 
have been digging for information about them—uncovering 
long-buried cities, sweeping away Egyptian sand, rifling 
chambers at the foot of hidden Egyptian shafts, dredging 
Tibers and Grecian seas; puzzling over writings on stone and 
brick, relics of a long past; discovering the hiding-places of 
forgotten MSS. ; tracking old Zeus, father of gods and Lord 
of the Air, to his Cretan cave; digging amongst the roots of 
language; and in many another way have been living back- 
ward into the past faster than we have been living forward 
in time. 
I think it is coming to this, that the further we reach 
back, the more respect have we for our long line of human 
ancestors. There were intellectual giants in those days, as 
now; the men of those times looked pretty much as we 
look ; they lived and moved as we do to-day; and, in philos- 
ophy, as in the affairs of daily life, they seem te have 
