AIM AND PROGRESS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 323 



scientific pursuits relaxation from other occupation. Here 

 each of us hopes to meet with fresh impulse and encourage- 

 ment for his peculiar work; the man who lives in a small 

 country place hopes to meet with the recognition, otherwise 

 unattainable, of having aided in the advance of science; he 

 hopes by intercourse with men pursuing more or less the 

 same object to mark the aim of new researches. We re- 

 joice to find among us a goodly proportion of members re- 

 presenting the cultivated classes of the nation; we see influ- 

 ential statesmen among us. They all have an interest in 

 our labours ; they look to us for further progress in civili- 

 sation, further victories over the powers of nature. They it 

 is who place at our disposal the actual means for carrying 

 on our labours and are therefore entitled to inquire into 

 the results of those labours. It appears to me, therefore, 

 appropriate on this occasion to take account of the progress of 

 science as a whole, of the objects it aspires to, and the magni- 

 tude of the efforts made to attain them. 



Such a survey is desirable ; that it lies beyond the powers 

 of any one man to accomplish with even an approximate com- 

 pleteness such a task as this is clear from what I have already 

 said. If I stand here to-day with such a problem entrusted to 

 me, my excuse must be that no other would attempt 

 it, and I hold that an attempt to accomplish it, even if 

 with small success, is better than none whatever. Besides, 

 a physiologist has perhaps more than all others immediate oc- 

 casion to maintain a clear and constant view of the entire field, 

 for in the present state of things it is peculiarly the lot of the 

 physiologist to receive help from all other branches of science 

 and to stand in alliance with them. In physiology, in fact, the 

 importance of the vast strides to which I shall allude has been 

 chiefly felt, while to physiology, and the leading controversies 

 arising in it, some of the most valuable discoveries are directly 

 due. 



If I leave considerable gaps in my survey, my excuse must 

 be the magnitude of the task, and the fact that the pressing 

 summons of my friend the secretary of this Association reached 

 Y 2 



