10 New Zealand Institute. 



and of the affiliated Societies, the establishment of which it will encourage in 

 all our chief centres of population. And here I must observe that the 

 Grovernment has been very fortunate in securing for this important office the 

 proved ability and judgment, the wide experience, and the untiring energy 

 of Dr. Hector, F.R.S. It is to him that we are mainly indebted for the 

 valuable collections of art and science already accumulated in these halls ; 

 and he will always be ready to give his advice and assistance in the forma- 

 tion of Museums in our principal towns. Co-operation is the secret of 

 success in all scientific pursuits; and the New Zealand Institute, while 

 leaving its aifiliated Societies unfettered in the performance of their separate 

 functions, will publish their chief transactions on a uniform plan, thereby 

 concentratiag the information collected by local observers throughout the 

 country, and providing for the preservation, in a permanent and accessible 

 form, of the result of their labours. It should not be forgotten that the 

 New Zealand Exhibition of 1865, held at Dunedin, was an effort in the same 

 direction ; and that, if we may judge from the reports, it appears to have 

 been very successful in procuring much novel and accurate information 

 respecting the natural resources of this colony. 



And now, gentlemen, I congratulate you on already possessing, in this 

 Public Museum and Library, facilities for that moral and intellectual 

 culture without which no advantages of genius or of wealth can confer 

 personal happiness, and no political privileges can secure immunity from 

 national decay. Lord Bacon, the prince of philosophers, " il gran Maestro 

 di color die sanno " in the modern, as Dante said of Aristotle in the ancient 

 world, has pronounced that " Knowledge is power," and also that " Know- 

 ledge is pleasure." So too, Milton, the prince of modern poets, has sung, — 



How charming is Divine Philosophy ! 



Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 



But musical as is Apollo's lute : 



And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 



Where no crude surfeit reigns.* 



Still, let me remind you that the main object of the Legislature in founding 



this Institute was not merely to make provision for healthy intellectual 



recreation, but rather to provide guidance and aid for the people of New 



Zealand in subduing and replenishing the earth, — in the "heroic work" of 



colonization. 



The field of science may be compared to a clearing in one of our primeval 



forests, where the more trees a settler fells, the greater appears the expanse 



of wood around him ; and it might almost be said that every colonist in a 



new and unexplored country is, unconsciously, more or less of a scientific 



* Milton's " Comus." 



