186 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
Council has not been unwatchful, and has had at least the assurance 
that notice shall be given it of any proposal, in that direction, being 
submitted to the Government. No notice has been received so far; 
but no assurance, neither, that such proposals may not at any time be 
made. In this state of uncertainty, it is well to know that it has not 
been the practice of the Crown to derogate from its grants, unless 
where it is shown that change is required in the public interest, 
owing to some defect in the practical working of the Body whose 
charter it may be proposed to invade, and that the onus of showing 
such defect lies on the objectors. The only defect I have ever heard 
alleged against the organization of the Academy is, that a reader 
of a scientific Paper sometimes finds antiquaries among his audience, 
which, I fancy, can do Science no harm, and may do Archeology 
some good. 
The disquieting rumours incident to this project have not pre- 
vented the Academy from prosecuting all its objects with signal 
industry. In Science, especially, the number and variety of the 
Papers read at our Meetings show a great and continuing increase. 
An estimate of the growth of this revived activity amongst us may be 
formed from the fact that, whereas up to 1871 it took twelve years 
for the production of one volume—the twenty-fourth—of our Scien- 
tifie Transactions, the next volume was completed in 1875, the next 
in 1879, while that which is now current will probably be completed 
in 1883. 
I am not competent to pronounce whether, or how far, the matter 
of these later volumes, in its scientific value, exceeds or falls short of 
that of our earlier Transactions; but I have not been an inattentive 
listener, and I have observed that the Papers read have, I think, 
without exception, professed either to extend the bounds of existing 
knowledge, or to furnish more compendious processes for its attain- 
ment ; and, further, that they all have been confined to that province 
of Science in which every conclusion may be vouched by the certainty 
either of mathematical or experimental demonstration, or of widely- 
extended observation of external things. These are the excursions 
into the Unknown or the partially Known which justify the existence 
of Societies like this Academy. They supplement and extend the 
stock of knowledge communicated by our Universities and teaching 
Institutions. Their results, as they take shape, assimilate with the 
teaching of the future, and add to the supply of those theoretic 
instruments with which Practice and Invention work in ease of labour, 
in increasing the goods, and diminishing the evils, of human exist- 
ence. The process may be slow, and the steps, as taken, hardly 
noticeable, but the resulting combinations make themselves felt in 
the constantly increasing force of civilization. In proportion as such 
societies accomplish these ends, they rightfully claim the aid of 
enlightened governments in supporting suitable establishments for 
their meeting halls, libraries, and museums; and, even more essential 
than these, in guaranteeing to them that sense of corporate pre- 
