8 Anniversary Address. 



it otherwise, with the political constitution under which we 

 live, it is not on either that the blame would fall. Lord 

 Bacon, indeed, lays down the doctrine, that whatever the 

 form of Government may be, '' the state of knowledge is ever 

 a democracy, and that prevaileth Avhich is most agreeable to 

 the senses and conceits of the people/^ 



If there be then no just appreciation of the labors of 

 scientific men; if there exist unreasonable impatience that 

 the practical results of their investigations are not more 

 rapidly realised : the fault is chargeable on the entire com- 

 munity. 



I would not willingly imply that this is the case among us 

 here. Every credit is due, I must repeat, to the Legislature 

 for the liberality it has in times past displayed in scientific 

 matters. It has cause, I have already recorded my belief, 

 to be proud of the results achieved. For my own part, when 

 I peruse the encomiums passed in presence of learned socie- 

 ties at home, by so illustrious an authority as Sir Eoderick 

 Murchison, upon the labors of our Government Geologist 

 and Palaeontologist ; or w^lien I find so celebrated an astrono- 

 mer as Mr. Hinds congratulating the scientific world, 

 through the columns of the Times, ^'^That the essential in- 

 struments exist at Melbourne, in the hands of experienced 

 Astronomers, for observing the transit of the newly discov- 

 ered intra-mercurial planet over the sun's disc/' I feel, I 

 confess, prouder of being the Governor of a colony which has 

 attained this advanced stage of civilisation, than if I had a 

 stately palace to dv/ell in, or barbaric hordes to bend the knee 

 ' at my nod. 



If I am anxious, as I have hinted, to see still further 

 moderate expenditure for scientific purposes; if I long to 

 know that the Southern Heavens are nightly swept with an 

 eighteen-inch lens, instead of by our present comparatively 

 poAverless telescopes ; it is because I am convinced that such 



