Professor Owen's Address. 3 *7 5 



or characteristic fades, during periods extending far beyond the 

 utmost limits of human history. Such, gentlemen, is a brief sum 

 mary of facts most nearly interesting us, which have been demon- 

 stratively made known respecting our earth and its inhabitants. 

 And when we reflect at how late and in how brief a period of his- 

 torical time the acquisition of such knowledge has been permitted, 

 we must feel that vast as it seems, it may be but a very small 

 part of the patrimony of truth destined for the possession of future 

 generations. 



SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS. 



In reviewing the nature and results of our proceedings during 

 the last twenty-seven years, and the aims and objects of our Asso- 

 ciation, it seems as if we were realizing the grand Philosophical 

 Dream or Prefigurative Vision of Francis Bacon, which he has 

 recounted in his ' New Atlantis.' In this noble Parable the Father 

 of Modern Science imagines an Institution which he calls " Solo- 

 mon's House," and informs us by the mouth of one of its mem- 

 bers that " The end of the Foundation is Knowledge of Causes 

 and Secret Motions of Things ; and enlarging of the bounds of 

 Human Empire to the effecting of all things possible." As one 

 important means of effecting the great aims of Bacon's " six days 

 college," certain of its members were deputed as " merchants of 

 light," to make circuits or visits of divers principal cities of the 

 kingdom." This latter feature of the Baconian organization is 

 the chief characteristic of the " British Association ;" but we 

 have striven to carry out other aims of the ' New Atlantis,' such 

 as the systematic summaries of the results of different branches of 

 science, of which our published volumes of ' Reports' are evidence ; 

 and we have likewise realized, in some measure, the idea of the 

 " Mathematical House " in our establishment at Kew. The 

 national and private observatories, the Royal and other Scientific 

 Societies, the British Museum, the Zoological, Botanical, and Hor- 

 ticultural Gardens, combine in our day to realize that which Bacon 

 foresaw in distant perspective. Great, beyond all anticipation, 

 have been the results of this organization, and of the application 

 of the inductive methods of interrogating nature. The universal 

 law of gravitation, the circulation of the blood, the analogous 

 course of the magnetic influence, which may be said to vivify the 

 earth, permitting no atom of its most solid constituents to stagnate 

 in total rest ; the development and progress of Chemistry, Geology, 



