THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 2 
sopher, and a grateful recognition of his services to this body in 
suggesting and promoting its formation. 
On the occasion of his inaugural address, after a brief account of 
recent progress in science, made with the lucidity of expression which 
characterised all the literary efforts of the learned biographer of Newton 
and yersatile editor of the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, the Edinburgh 
Magazine, and the Edinburgh Journal of Science, the President dwelt 
upon the beneficent influence of the Association in securing a more 
general attention to the objects of science, and in effecting a removal 
of disadvantages of a public kind that impeded its progress. It was 
largely to the action of the Association, assisted by the writings and 
personal exertions of its members, that the Government was induced 
to extend a direct national encouragement to science and to aid in its 
organisation. . 
Brewster had a lofty ideal of the place of science in the intellectual 
life of a community, and of the just position of the man of science 
in the social scale. In well-weighed words, the outcome of matured 
experience and of an intimate knowledge of the working of European 
institutions created for the advancement of science and the diffusion 
of knowledge, he pleaded for the establishment of a national institution 
in Britain, possessing a class of resident members who should devote 
themselves wholly to science—with a place and station in society the 
most respectable and independent— ‘free alike,’ as Playfair put it, 
‘ from the embarrassments of poverty or the temptations of wealth.’ 
Such men, ‘ ordained by the State to the undivided functions of science,’ 
would, he contended, do more and better work than those who snatch 
an hour or two from their daily toil or nightly rest. 
This ideal of ‘ combining what is insulated, and uniting in one great 
institution the living talent which is in active but undirected and un- 
befriended exercise around us,’ was not attained during Brewster’s time ; 
nor, notwithstanding the reiteration of incontrovertible argument during 
the past seventy years, has it been reached in our own. 
I have been led to dwell on Sir David Brewster’s association with this 
question of the relations of the State towards research for several 
reasons. Although he was not the first to raise it—for Davy more 
than a century ago made it the theme of presidential addresses, and 
brought his social influence to bear in the attempt to enlist the practical 
sympathy of the Government—no one more consistently urged its 
national importance, or supported his case with a more powerful advo- 
cacy, than the Principal of the University of Edinburgh. It is only 
seemly, therefore, that on this particular occasion, and in this city of 
his adoption, where he spent so much of his intellectual energy, I 
should specially allude to it. Moreover, we can never forget what this 
Association owes to his large and fruitful mind. Every man is a 
