OPPOSITION 43 



perhaps, in individual cases, with a sensation of that 

 mental fatigue which may be induced by digesting 

 scientific problems into a form suitable for the public 

 comprehension, after the philosopher has striven to 

 present them in a form intelligible only to his peers. 

 At no time, however, is there traceable any tendency 

 to allow the meetings to degenerate into popular 

 exhibitions. No less an authority than Murchison 

 (who, as a general officer, fully recognised the value 

 of the popular appeal) took guard against such a 

 tendency when, writing to Whewell on the question 

 of the meeting-place in 1845, he stated that ' we 

 repudiate the idea that the chief aim of our existence 

 is to stir up a few embers of scientific warmth in the 

 provinces. If, indeed, that were truly our main 

 object, I for one would cease to play pantaloon or 

 clown in the strolling company/ It is, however, 

 one matter to capture the attention of the citizens of 

 a single town, but quite another to bring the real 

 interests of science before the public generally, as the 

 Association has done from its earliest years. In 1858, 

 Owen, in his presidential address, was able to express 

 the belief that the Association was ' realising the grand 

 Philosophical Dream or Prefigurative Vision of Francis 

 Bacon, which he has recounted in his New Atlantis.' 

 Certainly the ' Father of Modern Science/ in imagin- 

 ing the institution which he called ' Solomon's House/ 

 went near to forecasting much of the activity of the 

 Association, and notably so when he envisaged the 

 sending forth of students of science as ' merchants 

 of light/ to make ' circuits or visits of divers principal 

 cities of the kingdom/ 



