10 ANNUAL 
Council, and especially for your recognition of the anxious task they have 
had in finding a President to occupy the place of the late Lord Shaftesbury, 
and I must also express our thanks to Professor Stokes for concurring in 
the selection we made. 
The CuarrmMan (Sir H. Barxty, K.C.B., G.C.M.G., F.R.S.).—By the 
‘vote just agreed to, the election of Professor Stokes as President. of this 
Institute has been confirmed by the Society, and it therefore becomes my 
duty to vacate this chair in order that it may be taken by our new President. 
I think it a great honour to the Society that its presidency should be accepted 
by so distinguished a man as Professor Stokes, the President of the Royal 
Society of Great Britain. This is not only an honour to the Victoria Institute, 
but may also be regarded as a triumph to the divine cause of truth and 
science throughout the world—a cause which we believe to be one and 
indissoluble. 
Professor Sroxes (President of the Royal Society) having, amid general 
applause, taken the chair, said :—Ladies and gentlemen, in taking this chair 
as President of the Victoria Institute, I cannot but feel how unworthy a 
successor I am to that great and good nobleman who has been lost to us in 
the course of the past year. I need say nothing about his virtues, for they 
were familiar to you all. You know, also, the great interest he took, from the 
very first, in the prosperity of this Institute. I regret to say that hitherto, 
although you were so good as to make me an honorary member, I have but 
seldom attended the meetings of the Council or the anniversaries of the 
‘Society ; but I hope in future to be able to attend more frequently. At the 
same time, I should state that I have duties in connexion with the University 
of Cambridge, and that I also have other duties in London in connexion with 
the post I occupy in the Royal Society. The statutes under which I live make 
it necessary for me to reside, to a considerable extent, at Cambridge, as I have 
duties to perform in relation to the professorship I there hold ; nevertheless, I 
hope from time to time—I trust I may say not very infrequently—to be among 
you, so that I may endeavour to carry out, to the best of my ability, the objects 
for which this Institute has been foundeu. If experience should show that I 
cannot properly discharge the duties of the post in consequence of my other 
engagements, and I should be led to request you to appoint some one who has 
more leisure to be your President, [ hope you will not consider that that is 
out of any want of respect on my part towards this Institute. I sympathise 
very strongly with the ends it has in view, for I believe that truth from one 
quarter will not contradict truth from another. I can sympathise with those 
who have at heart those truths which the human mind alone could not have 
found out for itself, and in which we believe our whole race is deeply con- 
cerned, and I also sympathise with those who eagerly pursue science in a 
truth-loving spirit, as I believe pretty nearly the whole of the workers in 
science do. Therefore, I think I can truly say that I am in sympathy with 
the main objects which I understand it to be the desire of this Institute to 
promote, by affording, as the Dean of Lichfield has said, fuller information 
that may enable us to remove the apparent discrepancies between the two great 
