MEMOIR OP 



discovery of the truth without difference of opinion 

 is unattainable, because the truth in its greatest ex- 

 tent can never be recognized by all, and at the same 

 time. Each step, which seems to bring the ex- 

 plorer of nature nearer to his object, only carries 

 him to the threshold of new labyrinths. The mass 

 of doubt does not diminish, but spreads like a 

 moving cloud over other and new fields ; and who- 

 ever has called that a golden period, when difference 

 of opinions, or, as some are accustomed to express 

 it, the disputes of the learned, will be finished, has 

 as imperfect a conception of the wants of science, 

 and of its continued advancement, as a person who 

 expects that the same opinions in geognosy, che- 

 mistry, or physiology, will be maintained for several 

 centuries. 



" The founders of this Society, with a deep sense 

 of the unity of nature, have combined in the com- 

 pletest manner all the branches of physical know- 

 ledge, and the historical, geometrical, and experi- 

 mental philosophy. The names of natural historian 

 and natural philosopher are here, therefore, nearly 

 synonymous, chained by a terrestrial link to the 

 type of the lower animals. Man completes the 

 scale of higher organization. In his physiological 

 and pathological qualities, he scarcely presents to us 

 a distinct class of beings. As to what has brought 

 him to this exalted object of physical study, and 

 has raised him to general scientific investigation, be- 

 longs principally to this Society. Important as it is 

 not to break that link which embraces equally the 



