Auckland Instituti'. 445 



allusion to the strenuous efforts of many inventors to utilize the electric light, 

 to the wonders of the telephone, the microphone, and the phonograi^h, and to 

 the improvements in telegraphy, the latest of which, by Mr. E. A. Cowper, has 

 made it possible to send one's autograph by electricity, so that it will no longer 

 be ridiculous to say, "I know who sent this telegram, for I recognize the hand- writing." 

 I can but glance at the success which has crowned the efforts of two distinguished 

 physicists, Messrs. Cailletet and Piotet, to compress into the fluid form the so-called per- 

 manent gases, so that even hydrogen has been seen in the form of a fluid metal ; or at 

 the remarkable achievement of the masters in experimental chemistry, who have suc- 

 ceeded in putting together the molecules which form the colouring matter of indigo and 

 madder ; or at the penetration which has seen the cause of the irritating and cough-pro- 

 ducing dry fog of huge cities in the condensed vapour of hydro-carbons, derived from coal 

 smoke, by which the minute globules of water, of which the fog consists, are coated, and 

 so kept on the one hand from readily coalescing, and, on the other, from dissolving in the 

 air, even though the hygrometric condition of the atmosphere be reduced considerably 

 below the point of saturation. 



One cannot take up a scientific periodical without finding a record of advance in one 

 or more of the many branches of scientific research, or of application of known facts. 

 Many and diligent are the workers in the study of nature in the fullest meaning of the 

 word as applied to the whole material world. Great has been the work accomplished. 

 Great has been the gain of real knowledge of the material things by which we are sur- 

 rounded, and in the midst of which we have to do our part as best we may, ever acting 

 upon and affected by those among whom our lot is cast for the few short years of our 

 present state of existence. Of what is to follow, and how to prepare for the great future 

 which every man naturally looks for, science, however exalted, is, and must remain, abso- 

 lutely silent. Thus far, and no farther, may she come. Here sight and hearing, speech 

 and thought, avail no more. Science has no tustruments to sound the unknown depth, 

 to scale the unknown height, or to measure the length and breadth of the Infinite ; but 

 great is the joy, and boundless the hope of him who has learned to believe that what is 

 denied to the bodily faculties is permitted to the living spu'it, and thus, whatever his pre- 

 sent misery may be, he endures, " as seeing Him who is invisible," and calmly awaits the 

 day when Love, which lives for ever, will carry him safely across the unbridged gulf and 

 set him in the eternal home of the great Father of all. 



I cannot conclude this address better than by quoting a passage by Victor Hugo which 

 appears in the Contemporai-y Revieio for March last, as follows : — 



" Let us not forget, and let us teach it to all, that there would be no dignity in life, — 

 that it would not be worth while to hve, if annihilation were to be our lot. What is it 

 which alleviates and which sanctifies toil, which renders men strong, wise, patient, just, at 

 once humble and aspiring, but the perpetual vision of a better world, whose light shines 

 through the darkness of the present life ? For myself, I beUeve profoundly in that better 

 world ; and after many struggles, much study, and numberless trials, this is the supreme 

 conviction of my reason, as it is the supreme consolation of my soul. * * * There is 

 a misfortune of our times, I could almost say there is but one misfortune of our times ; it 

 is a tendency to stake all on the present hfe. By giving to man, as a sole end and object, 

 the material life of this world, you aggravate its every misery by the negation which 

 awaits him at the end ; you add to the burdens of the unfortunate the insupport- 

 able weight of future nothingness ; and that which was only suffering, that is to 

 say, the law ordained of God, becomes despair, the law imposed by hell. Hence 



