24 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



national intelligence, and that is the main condition for 

 national development. Scientific discoverers justly are indig- 

 nant at the question cui bono do your discoveries tend ? 

 Faraday was once asked this question in regard to one of 

 his new electrical discoveries, and he replied, " What is the 

 use of a baby ? " Yet this useless young naked mammal 

 has all the care and sentiment of its parents when young, 

 and even the State interferes in its upbringing so that it may 

 become a useful and productive citizen. 



Abstract science, which your Association endeavours to 

 promote, is the basis of human progress, and should be 

 encouraged for its own sake. It is the tree of knowledge, 

 which will produce industrial fruit in its appointed season. 

 Let Australia encourage science for its own sake, and, as a 

 nation, it will in due time receive ample national reward. 



I hope that your meeting will be eminently successful. Be 

 sure to send me your Address. 



Yours, ever sincerely, 



LYON PLAYFAIR. 



A few observations in conclusion. Tiie arrangement under 

 which this Association changes its place of meeting each 

 year is one which undoubtedly adds greatly to its usefulness, 

 to its vigour and freshness. Old Members renew their 

 acquaintance with one another at their annual gatherings, 

 amid new and interesting suri-oundings, and they make the 

 acquaintance of local workers who rarely move far from 

 home, from whom they gain much fresh local knowledge; 

 while these, on their part, are stirred into hfe and activity by 

 the presence among them of men from whom they can learn 

 so much, and from associating with whom iheir whole con- 

 ceptions of Nature's laws are widened and enlarged. The 

 British Association, on which our Association is modelled, has 

 so long outhved and hved down the sarcasms which used at 

 one time to be levelled at it as an institution to enable men 

 and women to play at science, that the attitude of mind 

 which so regarded it would be scarcely intelligible to this 

 generation were it not for the survival still amongst us of 

 some, not of the fittest, who scoi n the idea of any good arising 

 to the cause of science from these periodical assemblies of men 

 and women, of whom comparatively few are themselves 

 scientific. They say, " Let women keep to their domestic 

 duties, and us to our several businesses ; leave science to 



