130 ' President's Address. 



to the title of member of the Royal Society than that 

 of member of the Philosophical Institute, but as time wore 

 on many of these dropped behind. The annual amount 

 of subscriptions dwindled down to a small and easily- 

 managed income, till only those who cared about the Society 

 for its own or for science's sake remained. And although 

 I cannot say we are in a very prosperous condition finan- 

 cially, I still believe our Society is in a healthier state than 

 it was in its apparently more popular days. The few that 

 have stedfastly gone on with the work of the Society under 

 the most adverse circumstances, are now being gradually rein- 

 forced by members whose motives for joining are, I believe, 

 more substantial than those which influenced the many who 

 have left our ranks. If we wish to succeed, and make this 

 the foundation of what it may become in the fature, a great, 

 and peiliaps the greatest, scientific body in the southern 

 hemisphere, we must not sink its real objects — namely, the 

 cultivation of science, literature, and art — in our efibrts to 

 increase our revenue by indiscriminately swelling our 

 member-roll, or in attempting to make it too popular. 



