26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



as tlie names, whicli will at at once occur to all of us, abundantly 

 shew, , ' 



The popular character of the objects and constitution of the Brit- 

 ish Association is highly typical of the modern philosophy as dis- 

 tinguished from the ancient, or at any rate, from the mediaeval. The 

 old philosophers were cloistered reckises, living apart from their fel- 

 lows, and hiding their knowledge from the vulgar, or only display- 

 ing it to dazzle or to scare. Their works were not only written in 

 a tongue unintelligible to the many, but were couched in language 

 studiously obscui"e — a mystical jargon only understood by the initi- 

 ated. Nowadays, each new discovery is at once communicated in 

 clear and precise language, not only to those whose training has fitted 

 them to understand the technicalities of science, but also so far as 

 possible to the public. Indeed, many of the most gifted masters of 

 experiment and research have in late years expended almost as much 

 pains and labour in the popular exposition of the results of their in- 

 vestigations as they devoted to the investigations themselves. No 

 sooner, too, has a new truth been discovered or a new law been 

 established than a hundred acute minds are ready to seize upon it 

 and turn it to practical iitilitv — discovery and invention go hand in 

 hand, and the door of the laboratory opens into the workshop. 



It is in Italy that the germ of scientific associations first began to 

 sprout, but England was not far behind, and there more than two 

 centuries ago a little knot of earnest workers banded themselves 

 together to form a Society the fame of which was destined to 

 spread over the world, and on the model of which all subsequent 

 scientific societies have been more or less constructed — the Royal 

 Society of London, for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge. 



The first President was Sir Robert Moray. The Society was soon 

 incorporated under Royal Charter, and in 1663 a new charter was 

 granted which is still the fundamental constitution of the Society. 

 The first President under the new charter was Lord Browncker, the 

 Chancellor to the Queen, and a mathematician of eminence, and 

 among the members of the council appears the venerated name of 

 Robert Boyle. Two years later appeared their first number of 

 " Philosophical Transactions," as the papers published under the 

 auspices of the Royal Society are still called, and the year 1671 was 

 made memoi-able by the admission to the Fellowship of the Society 

 of a young professor of mathematics, of Cambridge,, who was destined 



