INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 29 



never attained, which is never perfect. Its law is progress, 

 A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and 

 will be its starting-point to-morrow." 



But it is not only from the material standpoint that the 

 study of science should be encouraged. The advantages of 

 scientific training to the mind are thus described by the 

 Royal Commission on Education which sat in 1861 : 

 " Science quickens and cultivates dirfectly the fixculty of obser- 

 vation which, in very many persons, lies dormant through 

 life ; the power of accurate and rapid generahsation, and 

 the mental habit of method and arrangement ; it accustoms 

 young persons to trace the sequence of cause and etfect ; it 

 familiarises them with a kind of reasoning which interests 

 them, and which they can promptly comprehend ; and it is, 

 perhaps, the best corrective for that indolence which is the 

 vice of half-awakened minds, and which shrinks from any 

 exertion that is not like an effort of memory purely 

 mechanical." 



Science directly tends to the elucidation of truth, which is its 

 groundwork ; and what can be more noble or ennobling 

 than the pursuit of truth when accompanied by a fearless 

 acceptance of its consequences? The love of truth is the 

 greatest force in the moral elevation of the human race, 

 and it is directly generated and fostered by the pursuit of 

 science. The more the scientific habit of mind is cultivated, 

 the more will a habit of absolute truthfulness be established 

 in all relations of life. We are scarcely conscious of the 

 extent to which misrepresentation or concealment of truth 

 permeates society in all matters political, commercial, and 

 social. I do not now refer so much to that sort of mis- 

 representation which would lead a man to be regarded as a 

 liar, as to the conventional want of truthfulness, or the com- 

 munication of half truths only, of which society generally is 

 so tolerant. Nor is it easy to conceive what the world would 

 become if falsehood and deceit were as rare as robbery or 

 murder, and the intentional conveying of a wrong impression, 

 or the permitting of a wrong impression to be received, were 

 regarded as utterly base and criminal. A scientific training 

 of the mind must work in this direction, for it is based on 

 truth, and is incompatible with any connivance at or tolera- 

 tion of conscious misrepresentation in any shape or form. 



