1866-57. CHEMICAL FINAL CAUSES. 443 



phosphorus, nitrogen, and iron are the best adapted of the known 

 elements for the purposes they are required to fulfil in animal 

 organisms." 1 



"What we call a final cause," he says, in the concluding 

 pages, " is not God's final cause, but only that small corner of it 

 which we can comprehend in our widest glance. The fragmen- 

 tary corner fills our intellects, not because it is vast, but because 

 they are small, and we find how small they have made it, the 

 moment we try to make the fragment a measure of infinite 

 wisdom. The wisest of us is but a microscopic shell in the 

 ocean of Omniscience, and when left on the shore with a drop 

 of its waters in our cup, we cannot reflect in its tiny mirror 

 more than a drop's worth of the meaning of the universe. And 

 yet we speak as if out of that drop the whole universe might 

 arise !" 



During this Session, as in the following one, he occupied the 

 President's Chair in the Eoyal Scottish Society of Arts, in the 

 prosperity of which he ever took a lively interest. His addresses 

 on entering office and quitting it, are to be found in the Trans- 

 actions of the Society. 2 While necessarily containing many 

 references of local interest only, some interesting topics, expanded 

 elsewhere, are touched upon. The good offices of this body 

 were by his efforts enlisted on behalf of the new Museum. The 

 meetings of such societies being in the evening, called for an 

 expenditure of energy unfavourable to his health, yet he deemed 

 it a duty as well as a pleasure to frequent them occasionally. 

 For some years he edited the ' Transactions of the Society of 

 Arts ;' he was twice elected a member of the Council of the 

 Eoyal Society of Edinburgh ; he was a member of the Council 

 of the Chemical Society, London ; a member of the Chemical 

 Committee of the Highland and Agricultural Society, and one 

 of the examiners for the agricultural diploma ; an honorary 

 member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ; and 

 corresponding member of the Medico- Chirurgical Academy, 

 Genoa. 



Of the voluntary labours which he failed not to add to those 



1 See Appendix. 



2 'Trans. R S. S. A.,' vol. v., pp. 1 and 43. 



