2 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 



address the annual gathering of the British Association. But, believe me, 

 I do not intend to shirk that responsibility ; for it seems to me that only 

 by discharging it as well as I possibly can, shall I be able to show you how 

 highly I value the great honour you paid me, when you added my name to 

 those of the distinguished men who have been your Presidents in past years. 



At first sight, it might appear a hopeless task for anyone who knows 

 nothing of Science to talk to you, who know everything about Science. 

 But those who work in the scientific field will be the first to admit that no 

 task is really hopeless, and, when I approached this one, I began to think 

 I might perhaps find a few topics in which I could interest you. For, after 

 all, Science is only another name for Knowledge, and any man who goes 

 about the world with his eyes open cannot fail to acquire knowledge of 

 some sort, which, if he can express it, must appeal to any audience. 



To adapt one of our most familiar sayings, the onlooker can see a great 

 deal of the game. And I, for instance, though I claim no insight into pure 

 Science, can fairly claim an onlooker's experience of very many practical 

 instances of Science as applied to the needs of our civilisation as we know it 

 to-day. For some years past, in war and in peace, I have been privileged to 

 have countless opportunities of examining, at close quarters, the concrete 

 results of such applied science. In things military and naval, in factories, 

 workshops, mines, railroads, in contact with the everyday problems of 

 education, health, land-settlement, agriculture, transport or housing — in all 

 such varied departments of human life, it has been borne in on me more 

 and more that if civilisation is to go on, it can only progress along a road of 

 which the foundations have been laid by scientific thought and research. 

 More than that, I have come to realise that the future solution of practically 

 all of the domestic and social difficulties with which we have to grapple 

 nowadays will only be found by scientific methods. 



It is from this experience, and with the convictions it has brought, 

 that I should like to-night to tell you something of my general impressions 

 of the bearing of Scientific Kesearch on the daily life of the community ; 

 and to show how that relationship can be developed by the mutual co- 

 operation of scientific workers and the State. I cannot better embark on 

 this attempt than by quoting to you the words of my distinguished pre- 

 decessor, though without the hope that what follows will maintain the 

 high standard which he set in his Presidential Address at the last meeting. 



Professor Lamb, on that occasion, expressed confidence that the efforts 

 of scientific workers ' have their place, not a mean one, in human activities, 

 and that they tend, if often in unimagined ways, to increase the intellectual 



