xxviii REPORT — 1841. 



In proceeding to the business of the Association, it is not uiy intention to 

 attempt to give you any account of tlie arrangements and prospects of the pre- 

 sent meeting, nor of the proceedings of the last, and tlie transactions of the 

 intermediate time. In several preceding years, there has been laid before the 

 first General Meeting of the Association a statement of the main contribu- 

 tions to science, which were included in the recent Proceedings of the body, 

 — a survey and estimate of the scientific work done during the twelvemonth. 

 This is a task always difficult, and sometimes long ; and I believe many of 

 you, who know the character which it almost necessarily assumes, of a col- 

 lection of abridgments of papers on abstruse points of science, will not regret 

 its being occasionally omitted. But perhaps I may be allowed to occupy you 

 for a few minutes with a slight sketch of the general aspect which the Asso- 

 ciation now appears to me to offer to a thoughtful spectator ; — of the place 

 it holds among the characteristics, and I may say, the institutions of our time 

 and country. Such a view of our position may serve to remind us of our 

 duties to the Association, and to the gi'eat cause Avhich it represents, and may 

 guide and animate us in the discharge of them. 



Those of you who are acquainted with the writings of the greatest of 

 our philosophers, are aware that several of them, contemplating the past 

 progress and future prospects of science in that spirit of comprehensive 

 thought and large hope, which the subject so strongly calls for, have imagined 

 some vast Institution, by which the advance of science should be systemati- 

 cally and powerfully aided ; — some great Philosophical College, which should 

 have for its business, not to teach mainly, but to make discoveries — to extend 

 our knowledge of every part of nature by all the appliances which experi- 

 ment and theory, observation and calculation, ingenuity and perseverance, 

 can supply ; and in addition to these, by more material resources, money and 

 a multitude of fellow-labourers. You recollect, perhaps, the great Bacon's 

 remarkable picture of the New Atlantis. The imaginary teacher, whom he 

 introduces as one of the sages of this Utopian region, describes to the in- 

 quiring traveller an institution which he calls Solomons House, and which is 

 such a college for making discoveries as we- have just spoken of. Of this 

 institution, he says, " The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes 

 and secret motions of things, and the enlarging the bounds of the human 

 empire to effecting of things possible." As parts of this house, there are 

 described caves and wells, chambers and towers, baths and gardens, parks 

 and pools, dispensatories and furnaces, and many other provisions for experi- 

 ment and observation. There are also many classes of persons who conduct 

 the business of this college, and whom, according to their employments, he 

 calls by somewhat fanciful names — merchants of light ; mystery men ; depre- 

 dators ; pioneers, or miners ; compilers ; doivry men, or benefactors ; lamps ; 

 inoculators ; and finally, interpreters of nature, who elevate the truths of ex- 

 periment into general laws, the highest forms of human knowledge. 



Other philosophical writers have presented, in various ways, somewhat of 

 the same conceptions. But, you will perhaps say, all this is mere imagination. 

 Such an institution exists only in Utopia : it Avas never contemplated as a 

 reality. True : it is ideal, just as all the highest forms of human institutions 

 are ideal. It is Utopian, just as a perfect monarchy, perfectly administered, 

 is Utopian. But if Ave conceive a perfect monarchy, where the sovereign 

 has unlimited power, which he exercises with entire wisdom and justice, while 

 the resources of the state are ample, and the character of the nation is intel- 

 lectual and progressive, must we not, in such an Utopia, include also the 

 notion of such a college of discovery ? Beyond all doubt, if we imagine to 

 ourselves a New Atlantis, we must also place in it a Solomon's House. Still, 



