PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETING. XXXI 



together ; and that Truth, under whatever forms she may pre- 

 sent herself, seems to have but one essential substance. 



"I have before spoken of the distinctions between moral and 

 physical science; and I need not repeat what I have said, unless 

 it be once more solemnly to adjure you not to leave the straight 

 path by which you are advancing, — not to desert the cause for 

 which you have so well combined together. But let no one 

 misunderstand my meaning. If I have said that bad passions 

 mingle themselves with moral and political sciences, and that 

 the conclusions of these sciences are made obscure from the 

 want of our comprehending all the elements with which we 

 have to deal, I have only spoken the truth ; but still I hold that 

 moral and political science is of a higher order than the physical. 

 The latter has sometimes, in the estimation of man, been placed 

 on a higher level than it deserves, only from the circumstance of 

 its being so well defined, and grounded in the evidence of ex- 

 periments appealing to the senses. Its progress is marked by 

 indices the eye can follow ; and the boundaries of its conquests 

 are traced by landmarks which stand high in the horizon of 

 man's history. But with all these accompaniments, the moral 

 and political sciences entirely swallow up the physical in impor- 

 tance. For what are they but an interpretation of the governing 

 laws of intellectual nature, having a relation in time pi'esent to 

 the social happiness of millions, and bearing in their end on the 

 destinies of immortal beings ? 



" Gentlemen, if I look forward with delight to our meeting 

 again at Edinburgh, it is a delight chastised by a far different 

 feeling, to which, had not these been parting words, I should 

 not have ventured to give an utterance. It is not possible 

 we should all again meet together. Some of those whose 

 voices have been lifted up during this great Meeting, whose 

 eyes have brightened at the presence of their friends, and 

 whose hearts have beat high during the intellectual commu- 

 nion of the week, before another year may not be numbered 

 with the living. Nay, by that law of nature to which every 

 living man must in his turn yield obedience, it is certain that 

 before another festival, the cold hand of death will rest on the 

 head of some who are present in this assembly. If a thought 

 like this gives a tone of grave solemnity to words of parting, it 

 svu-ely ought to teach us, during our common rejoicings at the 

 triumphal progress of science, a personal lesson of deep humility. 

 By the laws of nature, before we can meet again, many of those 

 bright faces which during the past week I have seen around me 

 may be laid low, for the hand of death may have been upon 

 them ; but wherever we reassemble, God grant that all our 

 attainntents in science may tend to our moral improvement; and 



