ADDRESS 



BY 



J. S. BUEDON SANDERSON, 



M.A., M.D., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., Professor of Physiology 



in the University of Oxford, 



PRESIDENT. 



We are assembled this evening as representatives of the sciences — men 

 and women who seek to advance knowledge by scientific methods. The 

 common ground on which we stand is that of belief in the paramount 

 value o.f the end for which we are striving, of its inherent power to make 

 men wiser, happier, and better ; and oar common purpose is to strengthen 

 and encourage one another in our efforts for its attainment. We have 

 come to learn what progress has been made in departments of knowledge 

 which lie outside of our own special scientific interests and occupations, 

 to widen our views, and to correct whatever misconceptions may have 

 arisen from the necessity which limits each of ns to his own field of study ; 

 and, above all, we are here for the purpose of bringing our divided ener- 

 gies into effectual and combined action. 



Probably few of the members of the Association are fully aware of 

 the influence which it has exercised during the last half-century and 

 more in furthering the scientific development of this country. Wide as 

 is the range of its activity, there has been no great question in the field 

 of scientific inquiry which it has failed to discuss ; no important line of 

 investigation which it has not promoted ; no great discovery which it has 

 not welcomed. After more than sixty years of existence it still finds 

 itself in the energy of middle life, looking back with satisfaction to what 

 it has accomplished in its youth, and forward to an even more efficient 

 future. One of the first of the national associations which exist in different 

 countries for the advancement of science, its influence has been more felt 

 than that of its successors because it is more wanted. The wealthiest 



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