THE PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 5 



ventured on the expressiou of a hostile conclusion is dismissed with an 

 *' Ah ! that is not the kind of testimony we are in search of ! " 



Now, this is morally dishonest in the highest degree ; but it is 

 unfortunately too true, and the result is, the slight esteem in which 

 the " Blue Book " philosophy is held by the world. 



The true worshipper of truth rises naturally into a purer atmosphere. 

 For our guidance through the past, for our hope and trust in the 

 present and the future, we have illustrious labourers, who breathe a 

 clearer ether than that inhaled by the great mass of noisy and 

 mischievous theorists. The surest test of the true investigator is the 

 absence of all bigoted adherence to theory — the readiness to surrender 

 an opinion as against an admitted fact. All educated men — foreigners, 

 possibly, even in a higher degree than Englishmen — reverence the 

 name of Newton, none more so than those who turn with disgust from 

 the panegyric which, in its blasphemous bombast, is so unworthy of its 

 great subject. A recent criticism on his life and works gives us an 

 anecdote (new at least to me), tending still higher to elevate him in 

 our esteem. 



" It was the noblest of his noble qualities that he rigidly and 

 sternly bowed down his hypotheses to facts. When Bradley and others, 

 had observed a certain nuta'ion of the earth, which they could not 

 account for, and were thinking it destroyed entirely the Newtouiaa 

 system, they were under the greatest difficulty how to break it to Sir 

 Isaac, and proceeded to d<» so in ihe softest manner. What wat- his 

 only answer ? ' It may be so ; there is no arguing against facts and 

 experiments.' The experimental and theoretical deflections of the 

 moon differed only in the rates of 16 to 13, but this was enough to 

 satisfy Newton that his principle did not admit of proof, and to 

 induce him to lay aside his speculations ; but the more accurate mea- 

 surement of a degree effected by Picard, after an interval of many 

 years, supplied the data which made the moon a true witness for the 

 law of gravitation." 



This is an equally beautiful and eloquent rebuke to the rash confi- 

 dence of many of our blind guides, ever too ready to wrest, mistake, or 

 ignore facts, that make against their darling hypotheses. 



Amongst the most mischeivous tendencies of this, as well as of 

 preceding ages, may be reckoned the extreme fondness for deducing a 

 novel hypothesis, oftentimes directly opposed to some wide spread 

 opinion — before the facts and phenomena have been thoroughly in- 



