Anniversary Meeting of the Zoological Club. 225 
science, will not suffer by a comparison with the best of the 
productions of the old world. 
One more topic of congratulation remains to be noticed. I 
referred to it when I began to address you; and I return to 
it with heartfelt interest in my closing w ords. I allude to the 
establishment of the Zoological Society. On the eve of the 
dissolution of this club, it is a theme not merely of conso- 
lation but of triumph, that we have been the embryo of that 
higher body which has now sprung into the perfect form. 
The individuals who are now about to separate will carry in 
their recollection, to their latest day, the share which they have 
had in this great consummation. The occurrences of those 
evenings rill ever be vivid in their memory, when, in con- 
junction with the illustrious founder and first president of that 
Society, they suggested the auspiciousness of the times for 
such an undertaking, and the probability, I should say, the 
certainty, of success. With what delight have we dwelt upon 
the words of that great man, when, wich an intelligence that 
in a less enlightened age might have passed for a spirit of 
prophecy, lies portrayed, even to the minutest details, the 
plans and the hopes which we have since seen realised. ‘Time 
presses, and already I have engrossed too much of your atten- 
tion, or I should indulge myself in dwelling upon the qualifi- 
cations that pointed out Sir Stamford Raffles, as the individual 
most fitted to organise and preside over such a national un- 
dertaking. I should speak of that comprehensiveness of mind 
which embraced, as if by intuition, the entire of every subject 
to which it applied itself, — that promptness of spirit, which 
executed as soon as it conceived, — that total prostration of 
all selfish feelings, which acknow ledged no interests but those 
of the great cause he espoused. ‘l'ranscendent as were his 
other qualities, this last, perhaps, is that to which we may 
refer with the deepest satisfaction. Beautiful, indeed, it is to 
contemplate the enthusiasm with which he devoted himself 
to the cause, — while more cautious calculators were coldly 
watching the tide of events, prepared to retreat in misfortune, 
but ready in case of success to ‘ swell the triumph and par- 
take the gale,” —that entire devotedness, Lrepeat, with which, 
listening not to such timid suggestions, but making ‘ one 
great offering ” of his time, his talents, and his energetic ex- 
Biions; he laid them, with all-confiding homage, Helene the 
shrine of the science he worshipped. 
Nor was the confidence misplaced, or the sacrifice abortive. 
He is gone, — but his spirit and energy survived; and the 
results appear in the great work before you. On these I need 
not dwell: you have yourselves witnessed the gradual pro- 
