4 REPORT — 1894. 



state of feeling came to light last year in the interesting biography of Dr. 

 Pusey, which is the posthumous work of Canon Liddon. In it is related 

 the first visit of the Association to Oxford in 1832. Mr. Keble, at that 

 time a leader of University thought, writes indignantly to his friend to 

 complain that the honorary degree of D.C.L. had been bestowed upon 

 some of the most distinguished members of the Association : ' The Oxford 

 Doctors,' he says, ' have truckled sadly to the spirit of the times in 

 receiving the hodge-podge of philosophers as they did.' It is amusing, at 

 this distance of time, to note the names of the hodge-podge of philosophers 

 whose academical distinctions so sorely vexed Mr. Keble's gentle spirit. 

 They were Brown, Brewster, Faraday, and Dalton. When we recollect 

 the lovable and serene character of Keble's nature, and that he was at 

 that particular date probably the man in the University who had the 

 greatest power over other men's minds, we can measure the distance we 

 have traversed since that time ; and the rapidity with which the con- 

 verging paths of these two intellectual luminaries, the University and the 

 Association, have approximated to each other. This sally of Mr. Keble's 

 was no passing or accidental caprice. It represented a deep-seated senti- 

 ment in this place of learning, which had its origin in historic causes, 

 and which has only died out in our time. One potent cause of it was 

 that both bodies were teachers of science, but did not then in any 

 degree attach the same meaning to that word. Science with the Univer- 

 sity for many generations bore a signification different from that which 

 belongs to it in this assembly. It represented the knowledge which alone 

 in the Middle Ages was thought worthy of the name of science. It was 

 the knowledge gained not by external observation, but by mere reflection. 

 The student's microscope was turned inward upon the recesses of his 

 own brain ; and when the supply of facts and realities failed, as it very 

 speedily did, the scientific imagination was not wanting to furnish to 

 successive generations an interminable series of conflicting speculations. 

 That science — science in our academical sense — had its day of rapid 

 growth, of boundless aspiration, of enthusiastic votaries. It fascinated 

 the rising intellect of the time, and it is said — people were not particular 

 about figures in those days — that its attractions were at one time potent 

 enough to gather round the University thirty thousand students, who for 

 the sake of learning its teaching were willing to endure a life of the 

 severest hardship. Such a state of feeling is now an archaeological 

 curiosity. The revolt against Aristotle is now some three centuries old. 

 But the mental sciences which were supposed to rest upon his writings 

 have retained some of their ascendency even till this day, and have only 

 slowly and jealously admitted the rivalry of the growing sciences of 

 observation. The subject is interesting to us, as this undecided state 

 of feeling coloured the experiences of this Association at its last Oxford 

 visit, nearly a generation later, in 1860. The warmth of the encounters 

 which then took place have left a vivid impression on the minds of those 

 who are old enough to have witnessed them. That much energy was on 



