324 Annual Report. 



have done as much, as in our circumstances, there was reason to 

 expect; particularly when we consider our employments, as only- 

 having been preparatory for such measures, as may attain a wider 

 practical effect hereafter, in fulfilling the Institution's object, 

 viz.: "investigating the Geography, Natural History, and 

 General Resources of South Africa." We need not say that the 

 practical result we hope from the past preparation and expe- 

 rience, must depend entirely upon your efforts, and that the 

 success which you wish or hope can arise only from the aug- 

 mentation of them. 



We can safely assert that a great deal will he gained even by 

 doing as we have done, should the means of quicker progress be 

 denied. We trust that we may appeal to the experience of our 

 supporters, that a thirst and search for knowledge may be a 

 blessing, independent of the practical results of science in turn- 

 ing nature's powers to our use and comfort. We will feel that 

 the mind's gratification with the things we search into, increases 

 with our knowledge of their mysteries. For all science may 

 participate in the lofty aim of extending the mind's power by 

 multiplying the subjects of its contemplation, and making things 

 known, the augmenting instruments for further acquisition. We 

 may remark, how few of them who have been eminently success- 

 ful have been allured on by other motives than the uneasiness of 

 ignorance, and (he elevating desire to escape from it; the profit 

 they have looked for, if they aimed at such at all, has been that 

 which the mind claims as its right, and recoo;imcs as the com- 



D" 



pletion of its purpose and its destiny, in riving a purer direction 

 and more commanding range to its faculties ; the deepest ardor 

 of inquiry may be directed on those things, into which the senses 

 are the instruments of our search, with the simple and elevating 

 aim, that the mind may be enriched witli the knowledge of 

 them. To it, witli this aim, all discovery or increase of know- 

 ledge is as substantial nourishment, and thus ministered to by its 

 material organs, in developing the principles of things material as 

 themselves, it grows. as the glowing flowers of our climate, 

 which only cling to the rock as their resting place, but seek 

 their food in the breathings of the air which bathes them. Such 

 reward (and it is the highest we can seek) must attend upon our 

 efforts ; and were all science a fruitless dream, and all disco- 

 veries to perish untold in the mind which is their birth-place, 

 still were the immortal mind itself the wiser and the richer, 

 ■through the expansion of its exercised faculties, by its encounter 

 with them. And we thus have before us as an unquestionable 

 result of our exertion, that reward which attends the effort for 

 discovery, and may precede the attainment of it. 



