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INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



Edmund Burke, in his admirable Essay on the 

 '^ Sublime and Beautiful/' declares that " It is our ignor- 

 ance of things that causes all our admiration, and chiefly 

 excites our passions." The sentiment thus distinctly 

 and unequivocally enunciated by one of the most 

 elegant and accomplished writers of the last century, 

 seems to have found a very general approving response 

 in the minds of his successors. A deep-rooted conviction 

 appears to have taken possession of the public, that 

 an increasing taste for the cultivation of the exact 

 sciences, necessarily tends to chill the feelings, to dry 

 up the fountains of those nobler enjoyments which 

 spring from the contemplation of nature, and to rob 

 her of the charm and magic of her power. They 

 would have us believe, that in proportion as we learn 

 more and more how to unveil the secrets of nature, in 

 the same proportion do we stifle the vivifying breath of 

 imagination, and obliterate the aesthetic feelings. I 

 think it can be clearly shown, that such a sentiment 

 in relation to the influence of the study of the physical 

 sciences, is without the slightest foundation : — that the 

 opprobrium is as unjust as its reign must be transitory. 

 Such an opinion appears to have had its origin in those 

 narrow-minded views which limit the breadth and depth 

 of physical investigations to the discovery of mere de- 

 tails^ or to that weak and morbid sentimentality, which 



