ADDEESS 



BY 



Professor Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY, K.C.B., Ph.D., LL.D., 



D.Sc, M.D., F.R.S., 



PRESIDENT. 



It is now eighty years since this Association first met at York, under 

 the presidency of Earl Fitzwilliam. The object of the Association was 

 then explicitly stated : ' To give a stronger impulse and a more 

 systematic direction to scientific inquiry, to promote the intercourse 

 of those who cultivate science in different parts of the British Empire 

 with one another and with foreign philosophers, to obtain a more 

 general attention to the objects of science and a removal of any dis- 

 advantages of a public kind which impede its progress.' 



In 1831 the workers in the domain of science were relatively few. 

 The Royal Society, which was founded by Dr. Willis, Dr. Wilkins, and 

 others, under the name of the 'Invisible, or Philosophical College,' 

 about the year 1645, and which was incorporated in December 1660, 

 with the approval of King Charles II., was almost the only meeting- 

 place for those interested in the progress of science ; and its Philoso- 

 phical Transactions, begun in March 1664-65, almost the only medium 

 of publication. Its character was described in the following words of a 

 contemporary poem : — 



' This noble learned Corporation 



Not for themselves are thus combined 



To prove all things by demonstration 



But for the public good of the nation, 

 And general benefit of mankind.' 



The first to hive off from the Royal Society was the Linnean Society 

 for the promotion of botanical studies, founded in 1788 by Sir James 

 Edward Smith, Sir Joseph Banks, and other Fellows of the Royal 

 Society; in 1807 it was followed by the Geological Society; at a later 

 date the Society of Antiquaries, the Chemical, the Zoological, the 

 Physical, the Mathematical, and many other societies were founded. 



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