Proceedings of the Society. 175 
liberally subsidized in all civilized countries. The benefits 
flowing from the operations of the great scientific societies 
of the mother country are of incalculable public value and 
not to be measured at all by the aids which they receive. 
In this country in our more limited sphere it is the same ; 
and the useful work of a society like this is limited only by 
the resources placed at its disposal. In the winter of 1856-7 
I had the honor to deliver the introductory course of the 
Sommerville lectures, and as the audience of that evening 
has mostly passed away, I may be excused for quoting 
some sentences at the conclusion of this address. The sub- 
ject was Natural History in its educational aspects, under- 
standing by education that most practical and useful of all 
arts which develops men and women fitted to occupy useful 
and honorable places in the world and to minister not only 
to their own comfort and happiness but to those of others :— 
“ Natural History, rising from the collection of individual facts to 
such large views, does not content itself with merely naming the 
objects of nature. A naturalist is not merely a man who knows 
hard names for many common or uncommon things, or who collects 
rare and curious objects, and can tell something of their habits and 
structures. His studies lead him to grand generalizations, even to 
the consideration, in part at least, of the plans that from eternity 
existed in the infinite mind, and guided the evolution of all material 
things. Natural history thus rises to the highest ground occupied 
by her sister sciences, and gives mental training which in grandeur 
can not be surpassed, inasmuch as it leads her pupils as near as man 
may approach, to those counsels of the Almighty in the material 
universe, which are connected, atleast by broad analogies, with our 
own moral and religious interests. 
“Tt follows from the preceding views that the study of nature 
forms a good training for the rational enjoyment of life. How much 
of positive pleasure does that man lose who passes through life ab- 
sorbed with its wants and its artificialities, and regarding with a 
‘brute, unconscious gaze, the grand revelation of a higher intelli- 
gence in the outer world. It is only in an approximation through 
our Divine Redeemer to the moral likeness of God, that we can be 
truly happy; but of the subsidiary pleasures which we are here 
permitted to enjoy, the contemplation of nature is one of the best 
and purest. It was the pleasure, the show, the spectacle prepared 
for man in Eden, and how much true philosophy and taste shine in 
