president's address SECTION B. 63 



tion of the mutual relationship existing between the divisions 

 of science known as Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy; for 

 what we know is as nothing to what we do not know and 

 what still remains to be known. This may be a truism — some- 

 times it is half doubted. To me it seems hke the literal truth, 

 and that if we narrow our views to already half-conquered 

 territory only, we shall be false to the nien who won our 

 freedom, and treasonable to the highest claims of Science. 



And now, with the end in view, 1 feel conscious of having 

 only touched the fringe of one ]ihase of the all-absorbing 

 subject of the nature of this beautiful universe ; but, so far, you 

 will, I think, agree with me in saying that the study of 

 matter in its manifold aspects is not only worthy of our best 

 energies, but full of promise for the future. The hard 

 mechanical conceptions, accompanied by the dread born of an 

 unreasoning superstition, formerly held regarding Nature, 

 the irreverent and loose talk about " brute matter," and of 

 dead motionless matter, is passing away. The " dead " 

 matter is quickened and is alive with movement. What was 

 once taken for absolute rest and immobility is in a state of 

 high tension and rapid motion, yet always in perfect harmony 

 and in keeping with tiie orderly progress of tlie universe. 

 Whether we peer out into tlie ethereal depth inlaid with suns, 

 or whether we observe a crystal of potassium iodide dissolving 

 in water, we have rolling worlds in the one case and the 

 eddying molecule in the other, the gamut of the Universe 

 being complete, from the protean carbon atom to the remotest 

 so-callofl fixed star. Must we not, therefore, feel that the 

 contemplation of such perfection of structure and such majesty 

 of motion claims both our admiration and attention, and must 

 lead us to recognise that in all around us we have — 



Vox Dei in rebus revelata. 

 As with Lucretius, the gaze of the philosopher of the day is 

 again centred upon the atom. The question still asked is, — 

 What are the atoms? 



Ageless units in the amplitude of space, 

 Outlasting the ravage and the wreck of Time ; 

 Now in a dewdrop distill'd from a rosebud ; 

 Here in a crystal ; there poised in a sphere 

 Evolving from fire-mist new worlds for the futuri 

 To vibrate anew the great clarion of Life. / 



These — these are the atoml. 



