TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 609 
more general attention to the objects of Science and a removal of any disadvan- 
tages of a public kind which impede its progress—let me also add, its application 
to culture and to the public service. 
By holding meetings, year after year, in the principal towns of the British 
Isles, the Association has at least brought under notice the fact that Science is a 
reality, in so far as this can be testified to by several hundreds of its votaries 
meeting together each year to consider seriously and discuss the progress of the 
various departments. On the whole, dilettanti have had little share in our 
debates. The Association has already carried the flag of Knowledge outside our 
islands, thrice to Canada and once to South Africa; now, at last, we make this 
ereat pilgrimage to your Australian shores: still we are at home. What message 
do we bring with us? 
In 1847, when this city was but an insignificant town, it was visited by an 
Englishman who subsequently became eminent not only in Science but also as a 
literary man—Thomas Henry Huxley ; he was then surgeon on board the survey- 
ing ship ‘Rattlesnake.’ In 1848 Huxley visited Sydney and there met the 
gracious lady, only recently deceased, who became his wife. In after years he 
achieved a great reputation on account of his services to education. 
Lecturing in London in 1854, he defined Science as ‘trained and organised 
common sense ’—a definition often quoted since; none could be more apposite, 
though it must be remembered that ‘common sense,’ after all, is but an 
uncommon sense. 
A few years later, in a public lecture at South Kensington, Huxley spoke to 
the following effect :— 
“The whole of modern thought is steeped in Science; it has made its way 
into the works of our best poets and even the mere man of letters, who affects 
to ignore and despise Science, is unconsciously impregnated with her spirit and 
indebted for his best products to her methods. I believe that the greatest intel- 
lectual revolution mankind has yet seen is now slowly taking place by her 
agency. She is teaching the world that the ultimate court of appeal is observa- 
tion and experiment and not authority; she is teaching it the value of evidence; 
she is creating a firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral and 
physical laws perfect obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an 
intelligent being. 
‘But of all this your old stereotyped system of education takes no note. 
Physical Science, its methods, its problems and its difficulties, will meet the 
poorest boy at every turn and yet we educate him in such a manner that he 
shall enter the world as ignorant of the existence of the methods and facts of 
Science as the day he was born. The modern world is full of artillery ; and we 
turn our children out to do battle in it equipped with the shield and sword of 
an ancient gladiator. 
‘Posterity will cry shame on us if we do not remedy this deplorable state 
of things. Nay, if we live twenty years longer, our own consciences will cry 
shame on us.’ 
These words were uttered in 1861. Now, after more than fifty years, not 
twenty merely, we still go naked and unashamed of our ignorance: seemingly, 
there is no conscience within us to cry shame on us. I have no hesitation in 
saying that, at home, at all events, whatever your state here may be, we have 
done but little through education to remedy the condition of public ignorance 
which Huxley deplored. In point of fact, he altogether underrated the power 
of the forces of ignorance and indifference; he failed to foresee that these were 
likely to grow rather than to fall into abeyance. In England, what I will 
venture to term the Oxford spirit still reigns supreme—the spirit of the literary 
class—the medieval spirit of obscurantism, which favours a backward rather 
than a forward outlook. 
Wherein was Huxley out in his forecast? In 1861 the claim of Science was 
already strong but think what has been done since that time—what we can 
now assert of its conquests! In the interval, even within my recollection, the 
whole of our ironclad fleet has been created, rifled cannon, smokeless powder 
and dynamite have been introduced, and this last, in combination with the 
discovery of the causes of yellow fever and malaria, has made the Panama 
1914. RR 
