47 



years geology and palaeontology had overcome great ob- 

 stacles. History ceased to be history when it failed to 

 recognize the power of' science. The interdependence 

 of the sciences was everywhere apparent. The closest 

 relations exist between geology, palaeontology and arch- 

 aeology on the one hand, and history on the other. 

 The science of human physiology had also a direct bear- 

 ing upon history. The history of science should not be 

 confounded with history written upon a scientific basis. 

 The conclusion of the scientific man should be indue- % 

 tious. The use of statistics affords, an instance of a 

 purely scientific plan applied to history. Carried still 

 farther this science might be useful in solving the prob- 

 lems of political economy. Every part of science which 

 is not learned from original discovery, was learned from 

 history'. The best scientific treatises were purely histori- 

 cal. The whole tendency of modern science went to 

 prove that there was a still higher province for this 

 blended history and science, and that was the develop- 

 ment of a, system of ethics, with all the certainty and 

 regularity of mathematics. The speaker then referred 

 particularly to the society, its history^ and its work. 

 "What existed in the day of its founders only in name, 

 now afforded for public use a large and commodious 

 building, a library of 26,000 bound volumes, more than 

 100,000 pamphlets, and 2,500 volumes of newspapers, 

 bound and unbound, including duplicates. On the other 

 si'de of the library table the Ath^neum displays nearly 

 14,000 volumes more, in every department of literature. 

 The publications of the Society embrace the three num- 

 bers of the Journal of the Natural History Society, six 

 volumes of Proceedings, ten volumes of Historical Col- 

 lections, and an eleventh volume commenced, some occa- 

 sional publications, two volumes of the Monthly Bulletin, 

 and five of the Naturalist, this last though afterwards 



