9 



that it has very much contributed to maintain the honour and dignity 

 of our Institution. I make this acknowledgement the more readily, 

 because I must own that I was not a convert to the new system in 

 the first instance. It was perhaps because I had been intimate with 

 the Royal Society from a very early period of my life, that, when 

 the change was first suggested, I was led to believe, in common with 

 my friend Robert Brown and some other of the older Fellows, that it 

 would have been better for us stare super antiquas vias. Experience 

 has altered my opinion on the subject. 



" It would, however, be unworthy of us, as the living representatives 

 of those great men by whom the Royal Society was founded, to con- 

 sider the progress of the physical sciences only as it regards ourselves. 

 Looking abroad into what is going on in general society, I am sure 

 that there is no individual now present who is not gratified to find 

 that there is a desire to become acquainted with natural phenomena 

 and the laws which govern them, much beyond what existed even at 

 the beginning of the present century ; and that the opportunity of 

 satisfying that desire, to a certain extent, is afforded to persons of 

 every class, not only in the metropolis, but also in the provincial 

 towns, and sometimes even in our villages, by means of Mechanics' 

 and Literary Institutions, and by occasional lectures where no such 

 Institutions exist. As a part of the education of those who ought to 

 be the best instructed members of the community, in our schools and 

 colleges the study of the physical sciences has already taken root ; 

 and there is every reason to believe that the tree will grow and 

 flourish. 



" In the address which I offered to you at our last Anniversary, I 

 adverted to the influence which such studies must have in training 

 some of the higher faculties of the mind; and I also adverted to the 

 effect which they have already produced in laying the foundation of 

 a better method of investigation in other departments of knowledge. 

 It is not my intention to trouble you with a repetition of these obser- 

 vations ; there are, however, some other points belonging to the same 

 subject, to which I would willingly draw your attention. 



" In holding the opinion that much advantage would arise from the 

 study of the physical sciences being regarded as an essential part of a 

 liberal education, I apprehend that it has never entered into the mind 

 of any person who has seriously reflected on the subject, that it should 



