XX 



THIRD REPORT — 1833. 



last year's Reports which refers to one of the widest questions 

 of Physiology ; that of Dr. Prichard on the History of the 

 Human Species, and its subdivision into races. The other 

 lines of research which tend in the same direction will probably 

 be brought before the Association in successive years, and thus 

 give us a view of the extent of knowledge which is accessible 

 to us on this subject. 



" In addition to these particular notices of the aspect under 

 which various sciences present themselves to us as resulting 

 from the Reports of last years, there is a reflexion which may 

 I think be collected from the general consideration of these 

 sciences, and which is important to us, since it bears upon the 

 manner in which science is to be promoted by combined labour 

 such as that which it is a main object of this Association to 

 stimulate and organize. The reflexion to which I refer is 

 this ; — that a combination of theory with facts, of general views 

 with experimental industry, is requisite, even in subordinate 

 contributors to science. It has of late been common to assert 

 that facts alone are valuable in science ; that theory, so far as 

 it is valuable, is contained in the facts ; and, so far as it is not 

 contained in the facts, can merely mislead and preoccupy men. 

 But this antithesis between theory and facts has probably in 

 its turn contributed to delude and perplex ; to make men's ob- 

 servations and speculations useless and fruitless. For it is only 

 through some view or other of the connexion and relation of 

 facts, that we know what circumstances we ought to notice and 

 record ; and every labourer in the field of science, however 

 humble, must direct his labours by some theoretical views, 

 original or adopted. Or if the word theory be unconquerably 

 obnoxious, as to some it appears to be, it will probably still be 

 conceded, that it is the rviles of facts, as well as facts themselves, 

 with which it is our business to acquaint ourselves. That the 

 recollection of this may not be useless, we may collect from the 

 contrast which Professor Airy in his Report has drawn between 

 the astronomers of our own and of other countries. "In En- 

 gland," he says, (p. 184,) " an observer conceives that he has 

 done everything when he has made an observation," " In 

 foreign observatories," he adds, " the exhibition of results and 

 the comparison of results with theory, are considered as de- 

 serving more of an astronomer's attention, and demanding 

 greater exercise of his intellect, than the mere observation of a 

 body on the wire of a telescope." We may, indeed, perceive 

 in some measure the reason which has led to the neglect of 

 theory with us. For a long period astronomical theory was 

 greatly a-head of observation, and this deficiency was mainly 



