470 
NABORE 
[SEPTEMBER 14, 1899 
hope of being able, not merely to snatch a hurried glimpse of 
lands not yet seen, but to gather in with full hands a rich harvest 
of the facts which men not of one science only, but of many, 
long to know, as great as possible. 
Another international scientific effort demands a word of 
notice. The need which every inquirer in science feels to know, 
and to know quickly, what his fellow-worker, wherever on the 
globe he may be carrying on his work or making known his re- 
sults, has done or is doing, led some four years back to a pro- 
posal for carrying out by international co-operation a complete 
current index, issued promptly, of the scientific literature of the 
world. Though much labour in many lands has been spent 
upon the undertaking, the project is not yet an accomplished 
fact. Nor can this, perhaps, be wondered at, when the diffi- 
culties of the task are weighed. Difficulties of language, 
difficulties of driving in one team all the several sciences, which, 
like young horses, wish each to have its head free with leave to 
go its own way, difficulties mechanical and financial of press and 
post, difficulties raised by existing interests—these and yet other 
difficulties are obstacles not easy to be overcome. The most striking 
and the most encouraging features of the deliberations which 
have now been going on for three years have been the repeated 
expressions, coming not from this or that quarter only, but from 
almost all quarters, of an earnest desire that the effort should 
succeed, of a sincere belief in the good of international co- 
operation, and of a willingness to sink as far as possible 
individual interests for the sake of the common cause. In the 
face of such a spirit we may surely hope that the many diffi- 
culties will ultimately pass out of sight. 
Perhaps, however, not the least notable fact of international 
¢o-operation in science is the proposal which has been made 
within the last two years that the leading academies of the 
world should, by representatives, meet at intervals to discuss 
questions in which the learned of all lands are interested. A 
month hence a preliminary meeting of this kind will be held at 
Wiesbaden ; and it is at least probable that the closing year of 
that nineteenth century in which science has played so great a 
part may at Paris during the great World’s Fair—which every 
friend, not of science only, but of humanity, trusts may not be 
put aside or even injured through any untoward event, and 
which promises to be an occasion, not of pleasurable sight-seeing 
only, but also, by its many international congresses, of inter- 
national communing in the search for truth—witness the first 
select Witenagemote of the science of the world. 
I make no apology for having thus touched on international 
co-operation. I should have been wanting, had I not done so, 
to the memorable occasion of this meeting. A hundred years 
ago two great nations were grappling with each other in a fierce 
struggle, which had lasted, with pauses, for many years, and was 
to last for many years to come; war was on every lip and in 
almost every heart. To-day this meeting has, by a common 
wish, been so arranged that those two nations should, in the 
persons of their men of science draw as near together as they 
can, with nothing but the narrow streak of the Channel be- 
tween them, in order that they may take counsel together on 
matters in which they have one interest and a common hope. 
May we not look upon this brotherly meeting as one of many 
signs that science, though she works in a silent manner and in 
ways unseen by many, is steadily making for peace ? 
Looking back, then, in this last year of the eighteen hundreds, 
on the century which is drawing to its close, while we may see 
in the history of scientific inquiry much which, telling the 
man of science of his shortcomings and his weakness, bids him 
be humble, we see also much, perhaps more, which gives 
him hope. Hope is indeed one of the watchwords of 
science, In the latter-day writings of some who know not 
science, much may be read which shows that the writer is 
losing or has lost hope in the future of mankind. There 
are not a few of these ; their repeated utterances make a sign 
of the times. Seeing in matters lying outside science few marks 
of progress and many tokens of decline or of decay, recognising 
in science its material benefits only, such men have thoughts of 
despair when they look forward to the times to come. But if 
there be any truth in what I have attempted to urge to-night, if 
the intellectual, if the moral influences of science are no less 
marked than her material benefits, if, moreover, that which she 
has done is but the earnest of that which she shall do, 
such men may pluck up courage and gather strength by 
laying hold of her garment. We men of science at least need 
NO. 1559, VOL. 60] 
not share their views or their fears. Our feet are set, not on 
the shifting sands of the opinions and of the fancies of the day, 
but on a solid foundation of verified truth, which by the labours 
of each succeeding age is made broader and more firm. To us 
the past is a thing to look back upon, not with regret, not as 
something which has been lost, never to be regained, but with 
content, as something whose influence is with us still, helping 
us on our further way. With us, indeed, the past points not to 
itself, but to the future; the golden age is in front of us, not 
behind us ; that which we do know is a lamp whose brightest 
beams are shed into the unknown before us, showing us how 
much there is ahead and lighting up the way to reach it. We 
are confident in the advance because, as each one of us feels 
that any step forward which he may make is not ordered by 
himself alone and is not the result of his own sole efforts in the 
present, but is, and that in large measure, the outcome of the 
labours of others in the past, so each one of us has the sure and 
certain hope that as the past has helped him, so his efforts, be 
they great or be they small, will be a help to those to come. 
SECTION A. 
MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS. 
OPENING ADDRESS BY PRor. J. H. PoynTinG, F.R.S., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
THE members of this Section will, I am sure, desire me to 
give expression to the gratification that we all feel in the real- 
isation of the scheme first proposed from this chair by Dr. 
Lodge, the scheme for the establishment of a National Physical 
Laboratory. It would be useless here to attempt to point out 
the importance of the step taker in the definite foundation of 
the Laboratory, for we all recognise that it was absolutely 
necessary for the due progress of physical research in this 
country. It is matter for congratulation that the initial guid- 
ance of the work of the Laboratory has been placed in such able 
hands. 
While the investigation of nature is ever increasing our know- 
ledge, and while each new discovery is a positive addition never 
again to be lost, the range of the investizition and the nature 
of the knowledge gained form the theme of endless discussion. 
And in this discussion, so different are the views of different 
schools of thought, that it might appear hopeless to look for 
general agreement, or to attempt to mark progress. 
Nevertheless, I believe that in some directions there has been 
real progress, and that physicists, at least, are tending towards 
a general agreement as to the nature of the laws in which they 
embody their discoveries, of the explanations which they seek 
to give, and of the hypotheses they make in their search for 
explanations. 
I propose to ask you to consider the terms of this agreement, 
and the form in which, as it appears to me, they should be 
drawn up. 
The range of the physicist’s study consists in the visible 
motions and other sensible changes of matter. The experiences 
with which he deals are the impressions on his senses, and his 
aim is to describe in the shortest possible way how his various 
senses have been, will be, or would be affected. 
His method consists in finding out all likenesses, in classing 
together all similar events, and so giving an account as concise 
as possible of the motions and changes observed. His success 
in the search for likenesses and his striving after conciseness of 
description lead him to imagine such a constitution of things 
that likenesses exist even where they elude his observation, and 
he is thus enabled to simplify his classification on the assump- 
tion that the constitution thus imagined is a reality. He is 
enabled to predict on the assumption that the likenesses of the 
future will be the likenesses of the past. 
His account of nature, then, is, as it is often termed, a 
descriptive account. 
Were there no similarities in events, our account of them 
could not rise above a mere directory, with each individual 
event entered up separately with its address. But the simi- 
larities observed enable us to class large numbers of events 
together, to give general descriptions, and indeed to make, 
instead of a directory, a readable book of science, with laws 
as the headings of the chapters. 
These laws are, I believe, in all cases brie: descriptions o 
observed similarities. By way of illustration let us take two 
or three examples. 
