406 report — 1879. 



MOXDAY, AUGUST 25. 



The Chairman delivered the following Address : — 



The Association to which we belong seeks to advance Natural Science, that it 

 to say, accurate knowledge of the material world, hy the following means : — 



1st.— By bringing together men who are engaged in the various fields of science 

 indicated hy our several Sections, by promoting friendship between them, by giving 

 opportunity for discussion on points of difference, by encouraging obscure but 

 genuine labourers with the applause of the leaders whom they have learnt to 

 venerate, and by fostering that feeling of respect for other branches of science, that 

 knowledge of and interest in their progress, which chiefly marks the liberality of 

 scientific study. 



Secondly. — The Association provides funds, which, though small in amount, are 

 great in worth, from the mode of their distribution ; and serve in a limited degree 

 as an encouragement, though not an endowment, of research. One proof of the 

 value of this method of subsidising unremunerative work by small grants distri- 

 buted by the master workmen themselves is given by the fact that the sum of 4,000/. 

 annually contributed by the Government of the United Kingdom for the endow- 

 ment of research is distributed on the same plan by a Committee of the Royal 

 Society. 



The Third and most important aim of our Association is, ' to obtain a more general 

 attention to the objects and methods of Science, and the removal of any disad- 

 vantages of a public kind which impede its progress.' It is for this reason that the 

 Association travels from one to another of the great centres of population and intel- 

 lectual activity of the kingdom. Local scientific societies and local museums are 

 generated and regenerated in its path, local industries are for a time raised to a 

 higher level than that of money-getting, and every artisan mav learn how his own 

 craft depends upon knowledge'ot the facts of nature, and how* he forms part of the 

 great system of applied science which is subduing the earth and all its powers to 

 the use of man. We wish to make science popular, not by deceiving idlers into the 

 belief that any thorough knowledge can be easy, 'but by exciting interest in its 

 objects and appreciation of its methods. In the popular evening lectures you will 

 hear those who are best qualified to speak upon their several subjects, not preach- 

 ing with the dry austerity of a pedant, but bringing their own enthusiasm to kindle 

 a contagious fire in those who hear them. 



Endeavouring to aid in these objects, I shall in this introductory address offer 

 you some considerations upon the bearing of Biology in general, and Anatomy and 

 Physiology in particular, upon national well-being and public interests. 



Biology is the science of the structure, the functions, the distribution, and the 

 succession in time of all living .beings. If the proper study of mankind be man, 

 he has learnt late in the inquiry ''that he can only understand himself by recognising 

 that he is but one of a vast chain of organic creation ; that intelligible human 

 anatomy must be based upon comparative anatomy; that human physiology can 

 only be approached as a branch of general physiology, and that even the humblest 

 mould or seaweed may furnish help to explain the most important problems of 

 human existence. 



The branch of Physiology which is concerned with man, not as an individual, 

 but a family, the branch which we now call Anthropology, is obviously re- 

 lated to practical Politics, and it was not without reason that the late illustrious 

 pathologist Rokitansky began a speech in the Upper House of the Austrian 

 Parliament on the Autonomyof the Bohemian nation with the words, ' The question 

 really is whether the doctrine of Darwin be true or no.' 



In another department, that of Psychology, the physiology of the nervous 

 system has already thrown more light upon the mysterious phenomena of con- 

 sciousness than was gained by the acutest minds of all ages without the help of 

 anatomical methods. 



All the improvements of modern Agriculture and stock-breeding rest upon more 

 or less perfectly understood scientific principles, and the more perfectly the residts 



