4 C Tl ON PHYSICS. 



standard alone. The character of the problems which nature pro- 

 pounds, or which our predecessors leave as a legacy to our generation, 

 varies greatly from time to time. First, we have some great striking 

 question, the ver.y conception and statement of which demands the 

 very highest powers of the human mind ; unless indeed, the clear and 

 distinct statement of every problem may be regarded as the first and 

 most important step towards its solution. Next follow the first outlines 

 of the solution sketched in bold outline by some master hand ; after- 

 wards, the careful and often tedious working out of the details of the 

 problem, the numerical valuation of the constants involved, and the 

 reduction of all the quantities to strict measurement. It is in this 

 part of the business that the more elaborate instruments are especially 

 required. It is for bringing small differences to actual measurement, 

 for detecting quantities otherwise inappreciable, that the complex 

 refinements with which we are here surrounded become of the first 

 importance. But happily this somewhat overwhelming complication 

 is not of perennial growth, for, curiously enough, by a kind of natural 

 compensation, it relieves itself. In reviewing from time to time the 

 various aspects of a problem in connection with the instrumental 

 appliances designed for its solution, the essential features come out by 

 degrees more strongly in relief. One by one the unimportant parts 

 are cast aside, and the apparatus becomes reduced to its essential 

 elements. This simplification of parts, this cutting off of redun- 

 dancies, must not, however, be understood as detracting from the 

 merit of the original devisors of the instruments so simplified ; the 

 first grand requisite is to effect what is necessary for the solution of 

 the problem, then follows the question whether it can be done more 

 simply or by some better process. 



And this leads me in the next place to advert for a moment to the 

 advantages which may accrue to the cultivators of science, and through 

 them to the nation at large, from a national collection of scientific 

 apparatus. Through the liberality of our foreign neighbours, and 

 through the exertions of our own countrymen, we have here a magni- 

 ficent specimen, an almost ideal exemplar, of what such a collection 

 may be. By bringing together in one place, and by rendering 

 accessible to men of science generally, the instrumental treasures 

 already accumulated, and constantly accumulating, we should not 



