— I have had about 200 acres of new land broken up this last 2 years, 

 and shall sow it with artificial grasses this year, and will clear a 

 quantity more. If others would do likewise, instead of importing meat 

 we might be exporting. We have this year sold a quantity of stock to 

 be exported to Sj^dney — so much good the Scab Act has done — but I 

 am afraid I am trespassing on your valuable time, and wish you good- 

 bye. 



'* Yours truly, 



" James Wilson." 



The Bishop of Tasmania then read an opening address (this being 

 the first meeting of the session) on "Natural Science in connection 

 with Dr. Carpenter's inaugural address at the late meeting of the British 

 Association." His Lordship began by describing his impressions of Dr. 

 Carpenter's personal appearance when he saw him at the British Associa- 

 tion, when he was himself secretary in the Statistical Section under 

 the presidency of Lord Stanley — " a spare, bald man with keen features 

 and bald head." The object of the paper was to commend Dr. Carpenter 

 for rebutting certain physicists, who not content to establish the ordinary 

 sequence of Nature, " set up their own conception of such sequence as 

 if they were fixed and determinate laws by which those phenomena not 

 only are, but ever must be invariably governed." Man's interpretation 

 of Nature by the medium of science was as like to be influenced by the 

 mind of men as art and poetry. All our experience is affected by our 

 intuitions, and this is true of centuries as well as of individuals. "SMiile 

 we are accepting the conclusions of a previous age we are elaborating 

 new experience which will become "primary beliefs" for the next. 

 The paper instanced the illustrations of the debt due to modern science, 

 enforcing the unity of design, viz., gravitation and the spectrum analysis. 

 It combated the efforts of some writers to get rid of the notion of force 

 as being only matter in motion ; for the very fact that to arrest motion 

 involving the necessity of resistance, implies force to overcome another 

 force which originally set the object in motion. Nature, after all, 

 was not absolutely uniform, as is seen in the fact that between 40° and 

 freezing point the law of expansion by heat became reversed, but for 

 which departure from an otherwise uniform law the earth would be 

 uninhabitable. Such a deviation favoured the inference that not only 

 matter was subject to force, but force had been impressed by afore- 

 casting Personal Intelligence. * ' To set up laws as self-acting, excluding 

 the power which could give them effect, was arrogant and unphilo- 

 sophical. It was equally unphilosophical to propose to test the efficacy 

 of prayer by the quantitative analysis of the chemist, or the tables of 

 the actuary. When science enters into the domain of the spiritual and 

 moral, she must be warned off as a trespasser. There are boundaries 

 to her enquiries beyond which is eternal silence, which can only be 

 broken by the intuitions of some inner Light, and the voice of an 

 indwelling spirit. Science is not worthy its name which would bring 

 the domain of mind and conscience under the bondage of physical law. 

 The law must fulfil the will of Him who inhabited Eternity, foresaw 

 every result of His own law, and has promised to hear our prayers. 



Mr. Barnard had great pleasure in proposing a special vote of thanks 

 to his Lordship for his admirable address. He was glad to see the 

 session opened by an address of this character, and hoped the example 

 now set would be followed on similar occasions in future. He thought 

 that the letter from Mr. J. Wilson was of great interest, and hoped they 

 should occasionally receive other communications of a similar character. 

 Mr. Gould's parting gift deserved special notice ; and the best thanks of 

 the Society were also due to all the other donors of presentations. 



The vote having been carried unanimously, the proceedings terminated. 



