FIRST MEETING 17 



promote the intercourse of the cultivators of science 

 with one another, and with foreign philosophers/ 

 He enlarged at length and very eloquently upon 

 the desirability of such a foundation and upon the 

 methods of its working : he followed his address with 

 a series of resolutions (of which the first, giving effect 

 to the foundation, was seconded by Brewster) which 

 laid down the objects and rules of the Association ; 

 and he must be regarded as its law-giver. It is 

 appropriate, therefore, to quote with some liberality 

 from his speech, more especially as he gives a clear 

 general idea of the position of science in the British 

 islands at the period : 



' . . . Some difference of opinion may exist [he 

 said] ... as to the want in which we stand of a new 

 Association, to give a stronger impulse and a more 

 systematic direction to scientific inquiry. 



' I do not rest my opinion, gentlemen, of this 

 want upon any complaint of the decline of science in 

 England. It would be a strange anomaly if the 

 science of the nation were declining, whilst the 

 general intelligence and prosperity increase. There 

 is good reason, indeed, to regret that it does not make 

 more rapid progress in so favourable a soil, and that 

 its cultivation is not proportionate to the advantages 

 which this country affords, and the immunity from 

 vulgar cares which a mature state of social refinement 

 implies. But, in no other than this relative sense, 

 can I admit science to have declined in England. 

 What three names, if we except the name of Newton, 

 can be shown in any one age of our scientific history 

 which rank higher than those of men whose friend- 

 ship we have enjoyed, by whose genius we have been 

 warmed, and whose loss it has been our misfortune 



