ADDRESS 



BY 



WILLIAM PAIRBAIRN, Esq., LL.D., C.E., E.R.S. 



Gentlemen, — Ever since my election to the high office I now occupy, I 

 have been deeply sensible of my own unfitness for a post of so much distinc- 

 tion and responsibility. And when I call to mind the illustrious men who 

 have preceded me in this Chair, and see around me so many persons much 

 better qualified for the office than my-ielf, I feel the novelty of my position 

 and unfeigned embarrassment in addressing you. 



I should, however, very imperfectly discharge the duties which devolve 

 upon me, as the successor of the distinguished nobleman who presided over 

 the meetings of last year, if I neglected to thank you for the honourable 

 position in which you have placed me, and to express, at the outset, my 

 gratitude to those valued friends with whom I have been united for many 

 years in the labours of the Sections of this Association, and from whom I 

 have invariably received every mark of esteem. 



A careful perusal of the history of this Association will demonstrate that 

 it was the first and for a long time the only institution which brought toge- 

 ther for a common object the learned Professors of our Universities and the 

 workers in practical science. These periodical reunions have been of incalcu- 

 lable benefit, in giving to practice that soundness of principle and certainty 

 of progressive improvement, which can only be obtained by the accurate 

 study of science and its application to the arts. On the other hand, the men 

 of actual practice have reciprocated the benefits thus received from theory, 

 in testing by actual experiment deductions which were doubtful, and recti- 

 fying those which were erroneous. Guided by an extended experience, and 

 exercising a sound and disciplined judgment, they have often corrected 

 theories apparently accurate, but nevertheless founded on incomplete data or 

 on false assumptions inadvertently introduced. If the British Association 

 had effected nothing more than the removal of the anomalous separation of 

 theory and practice, it would have gained imperishable renown in the benefit 

 thus conferred. 



Were I to enlarge on the relation of the achievements of science to the 

 comforts and enjoyments of man, 1 should have to refer to the present epoch as 

 one of the most important in the history of the world. At no former period 

 did science contribute so much to the uses of life and the wants of society. And 

 in doing this it has only been fulfilling that mission which Bacon, the great 

 father of modern science, appointed for it, when he wrote that " the legiti- 

 mate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions 

 and riches," and when he sought for a natural philosophy which, not spending 



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