NOTICES AND ABSTRACTS 



OF 



MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS TO THE SECTIONS. 



MATHEMATICS AKD PHYSICS. 



Address hj Professor J. J. Sylvester, LL.D., F.E.S., President of the 



Section, 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — 



A few days ago I noticed in a shop window the photograph of a Royal mother 

 and child, which seemed to me a very beautiful group ; on scanning it more closely, I 

 discovered that the faces were ordinary, or, at all events, not much above the average, 

 and that the charm arose entirely from the natural action and expression of the 

 mother stooping over and kissing her child which she held in her lap ; and I re- 

 marked to myself that the homeliest featm-es would become beautiful when lit up 

 by the rays of the soul^ike the sun "gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy." 

 By analogy, the thought struck me that if a man would speak naturally and as he felt 

 on any subject of his predilection, he might hope to awaken a sympathetic interest 

 in the minds of his hearers ; and, in illustration of this, I remembered witnessing 

 how the writer of a well-known article in the ' Quarterly Review ' so magnetized 

 his audience at the Royal Institution by his evident enthusiasm that, when the lec- 

 ture was over and the applause had subsided, some ladies came up to me and im- 

 plored me to tell them what they should do to get up the Talmud ; for that was what 

 the lecture had been about. 



Now, as I believe that even Mathematics are not much more repugnant than 

 the Talmud to the common apprehension of mankind, and I really love my subject, 

 I shall not quite despair of rousing and retaining your attention for a short time 

 if I proceed to read (as, for greater assurance against breaking down, I shall beg 

 jour permission to do) from the pages I hold in my hand. 



It is not without a feeling of surprise and trepidation at my own temerity that 

 I find myself in the position of one about to address this numerous and dis- 

 tinguished assembly. When informed that the Council of the British Association 

 had it in contemplation to recommend me to the General Committee to fill the 

 office of President of the Mathematical and Physical Section, the intimation was 

 accompanied witli the tranquilizing assiu-ance that it would rest with myself to 

 deliver or withhold an address as I might think fit, and that I should be only 

 following in the footsteps of many of the most distinguished of my predecessors 

 were I to resolve on the latter course. 



Until the last few days I had made up my mind to avail myself of this option, 

 by proceeding at once to the business before us without troubling you to listen to 

 any address, swayed thereto partly by a consciousness of the very limited extent of my 

 oratorical powers, partly by a disinclination, in the midst of various pressing pri- 

 vate and official occupations, to undertake a kind of work new to one more used 



1809. 1 



