cii REPORT — 1869. 



and to devise a mode of formiug it artificially. The discovery is still 

 too recent to allow us to judge of the cost with which it can be ob- 

 tained by artificial formation, which must decide the question of its com- 

 mercial employment. But assuming it to be thus obtained at a suffi- 

 ciently cheap rate, what a remarkable example does the discovery afford 

 of the way in which the philosopher quietly working in his laboratory 

 may obtain results which revohitionize the industry of nations ! To the 

 calico-printer indeed it may make no very important difference whether he 

 continues to use madder, or replaces it by the artificial substance ; but what 

 a sweeping change is made in the madder-growing interest ! What himdreds 

 of acres hitherto employed in madder- cultivation are set free for the produc- 

 tion of human food, or of some other substance useful to man ! Such changes 

 can hardly be made without temporary inconvenience to those who are in- 

 terested in the branches of industry aifected; but we mi;st not on that 

 account attempt to stay the progress of discovery, which is conducive to the 

 general weal. 



Another example of the way in which practical api)lications unexpectedly 

 turn up when science is pursued for its own sake is afl:brded by a result 

 recently obtained by Dr. Matthiessen, in his investigation of the constitution 

 of the opium bases. He found that by the action of hydrochloric acid on mor- 

 phia a new base was produced, which as to composition differed from the for- 

 mer merely by the removal of one equivalent of water. But the physiologi- 

 cal action of the new base was utterly diflPcrent from that of the original one. 

 While morphia is a powerful narcotic, the use of which is apt to be followed 

 by subsequent depression, the new base was found to be free from narcotic 

 properties, but to be a powerful emetic, the action of which was unattended 

 by injurious after-effects. It seems likely to become a valuable remedial 

 agent. 



In relation to mechanism, this year is remarkable as being the centenary of 

 the great invention of our countryman James Watt. It was in the year 1769 

 that he took out his patent involving the invention of separate condensation, 

 which is justly regarded as forming the birth of the steam-engine. Little 

 could even his inventive mind have foreseen the magnitude of the gift he was 

 conferring on mankind in general, and on his own country more pai-ticularly. 

 In these days of steamers, power-looms, and railways, it reqiiircs no small 

 effort to place ourselves in imagination in the condition we should bo in with- 

 out the steam-engine. It needs no formal celebration to remind Britons of 

 what they owe to Watt. Of him truly it may be said " si monumentum 

 re<i uints circumspice." 



With reference to those branches of science in which we are more or less 

 concerned with the phenomena of life, my own studies give me no right to 

 address you. I regret this the less because my predecessor and my probable 

 successor in the Presidential Chair are both of well-known eminence in this 

 department. But I hope I may be permitted as a physicist, and viewing the 

 question from the physical side, to express to you my views as to the rela- 

 tion which the physical bear to the biological sciences. 



_ No other physical science has been brought to such perfection as mecha- 

 nics ; and in mechanics we have long been familiar with the idea of the per- 

 fect generality of its laws, of their applicability to bodies organic as well as 

 inorganic, living as well as dead. Thus in a railway collision when a train is 

 suddenly arrested the passengers are thrown forward, by virtue of the inertia 

 of their bodies, precisely according to the laws which regulate the motion of 

 dead matter. So trite has the idea become that the reference to it may seem 



