nvirin^ the twelve years I was Secretary, the large correspondence 

 1 had with Scientific Bodies in most of the civilized portions of the 

 world, and a personal visitation 1 made to some of them while on a 

 protracted tour of two years around the globe, disclosed to me the 

 very great interest taken in our Bulletin and the value placed on 

 such articles therein relating particularly to the fauna and flora of 

 this Pacific coast and the ethnology of its primitive inhabitants. My 

 experience has convinced me that the habitude of our home environ- 

 ment affords not only an ample, but the proper field for investigation, 

 anal_vsis and exposition for the function of our Bulletin. 



The last fifty years have been productive of most wonderful dis- 

 coveries in all branches of Science, which have conduced to the com- 

 fort and happiness of mankind, but it may be said with confidence 

 that Science is yet in its infancy and another half-century will dis- 

 close to the human race secrets of nature of which we now have no 

 conception, for no thoughtful scientist now accepts the word "impos- 

 sible" in his vocabulary. A time will certainly come when through 

 the portals opened by scientific investigation will be seen 

 "Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 

 Sermons in stones and good in everything." 



The noblest words of Shakespeare, and perhaps in the highest 

 apprehension of the human intellect, are these: 



"Ignorance is the curse of God, 

 Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." 



The gospel of truth is the verity of material entity. 



We accept in our studies nothing upon faith, for there is no 

 Apostolic succession in Science. 



The one great question now before the student of material nature 

 is. What is matter? 



The materialist asserts, as against ecclesiastical dogma, that it is 

 no more inconsistent to say that matter is eternal, than to affirm that 

 there is a sole eternal creator: No compelling prooj has been pre- 

 sented of the existence of a primordial intelligent cause, but the ma- 

 terialist has on his behalf the positive and practical scientific evidence 

 of the existence of matter, and that matter cannot be annihilated, and 

 he quotes the words of Byron, who was a poetic philosopher as well as 

 a philosophical poet, "Matter is eternal, always changing but repro- 

 duced and, so far as we can comprehend eternity, eternal." 



All of us, at some period of our life, have had certain so-called 

 religious beliefs, the result of early education, which may have become 

 modified or entirely eliminated by later study and reflection. Who of 

 us in his search for cause and effect has not been impressed with 

 Nature's great Procrustian law, 



"So careful of the type she seems, 

 So careless of the single life. 



In presence of the Magnalia naturae can we be anathematized if 



44 



