4 REPORT — 1000. 



Since the Association was at Dover a year ago, two of its former 

 Presidents have joined the majority. The Duke of Argyll presided at the 

 meeting in Glasgow so far back as 1855. Throughout his long and energetic 

 life, he proved himself to be an eloquent and earnest speaker, one who gave 

 to the consideration of public affairs a mind of singular independence, and 

 a thinker and writer in a wide range of human knowledge. Sir J. Wm. 

 Dawson was President at the meeting in Birmingham in 1886. Born 

 in Nova Scotia in 1820, he devoted himself to the study of the Geology 

 of Canada, and became the leading authority on the subject. He took 

 also an active and influential part in promoting the spread of scientific 

 education in the Dominion, and for a number of years he was Principal 

 and Vice-Chancellor of the M'Gill University, Montreal. 



Scientific Method. 



Edward Gibbon has told us that diligence and accuracy are the only 

 merits which an historical writer can ascribe to himself. Without doubt 

 they are fundamental qualities necessary for historical research, but in 

 order to bear fruit they require to be exercised by one whose mental 

 qualities are such as to enable him to analyse the data brought together 

 by his diligence, to discriminate between the false and the true, to 

 possess an insight into the complex motives that determine human action, 

 to be able to recognise those facts and incidents which had exercised either 

 a primary or only a secondary influence on the aflfairs of nations, or on 

 the thoughts and doings of the person whose character he is depicting. 



In scientific research, also, diligence and accuracy are fundamental 

 qualities. By their application new facts are discovered and tabulated, 

 their order of succession is ascertained, and a wider and more intimate 

 knowledge of the processes of nature is acquired. But to decide on their 

 true significance a well-balanced mind and the exercise of prolonged 

 thought and reflection are needed. "William Harvey, the father of exact 

 research in physiology, in his memorable work \De Motu Cordis et San- 

 guinis,' published more than two centuries ago, tells us of the great and 

 daily diligence which he exercised in the course of his investigations, and 

 the numerous observations and experiments which he collated. At the 

 same time he refers repeatedly to his cogitations and reflections on the 

 meaning of what he had observed, without which the complicated move- 

 ments of the heart could not have been analysed, their significance deter- 

 mined, and the circulation of the blood in a continuous stream definitely 

 established. Early in the present century, Carl Ernst von Baer, the 

 father of embryological research, showed the importance which he attached 

 to the combination of observation with meditation by placing side by side 

 on the title-page of his famous treatise ' Ueber Entwickelungsgeschichte 

 der Thiere ' (1828) the words Beobachtung und Reflexion. 



Though I have drawn from biological science my illustrations of the 

 nfeed of this combinationj it must ndt be inferred that it applies exclu- 



