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previous years I had been able to devote a large portion of my time, 

 and which were to me the chief objects of interest during the early 

 period of my life. Still, although I have ceased, except to a limited 

 extent, to be a labourer in that field of science in which I laboured 

 formerly, I have never failed to sympathize with those who in this 

 respect were more happily situated, and to regard with satisfaction, 

 or I ought rather to say with admiration, the grand results at which 

 they have arrived in extending the boundaries of human knowledge. 



If it were possible for any one of that small but illustrious band of 

 philosophers, who just two centuries ago were associated in Gresham 

 College for the purpose of mutually communicating and receiving 

 knowledge, and who there laid the foundation of the Society which is 

 now assembled to revisit the scene of his former labours, we may well 

 conceive the delight which it would afford him to learn that the suc- 

 cess of that noble enterprise had been so much greater than his most 

 sanguine aspirations could have led him to anticipate. Not only 

 would he find an ample development of sciences which were then in 

 the embryo state of their existence, but he would find other sciences, 

 not inferior to these in interest and importance, added to the list. 

 He would find that, instead of a limited number of individuals who 

 were then occupied with scientific inquiries, whose labours were held 

 in little estimation by the general public, and even held to be objects 

 of ridicule by the presumptuous and ignorant, there is now a large 

 number devoted to the same pursuits, and successfully applying to 

 them the highest powers of the human intellect. He would perceive 

 that, instead of being confined as it were to a corner, the love of 

 knowledge is gradually becoming extended throughout the length 

 and breadth of the land ; and that, of those whose position does not 

 afford them the opportunity of penetrating to the inmost recesses of 

 the temple of science, there are many who, having advanced as far as 

 the vestibule, are enabled even there to obtain their reward, in the 

 improvement of their own minds, and in being rendered more useful 

 members of the community. 



Now, to say that all that has been accomplished as to the cultiva- 

 tion of science in this country during the last two centuries is to be 

 attributed to the Royal Society, would be an absurdity. As, in now 

 far-distant times, the course of events led the ancient nations, first of 

 Greece and afterwards of Rome, to the cultivation of literature, of 



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