( XX ) 



in Archfeology, if we remember the researches of Lloyd, Graves, 

 Salmon, Jellett, Casey, Apjohn, Ball, and Kane, in Pure and Mixed 

 Mathematics and in the Physical Sciences, together with those of 

 Haughton, Mac Donnell, Macalister . and Purser in Biology and 

 Comparative Anatomy, and Archer, Wright and Moore in !N^atural 

 History, and Reeves, "Wilde, and Ferguson in Archaeology, we have 

 good reason to be proud of the efforts of our academicians in Science 

 during the period I have specified. 



If we turn to Biology, the labourers are comparatively few, as com- 

 pared with those whose Papers appear in the Proceedings of the B,oyal 

 Society. But the value of the results is truly great, not alone as re- 

 gards the discovery of fact, but in the philosophic mode of dealing 

 with the great mystery of life. The researches of Professor Haughton, 

 which culminated in his great work on Animal Mechanics, and which 

 he so richly illustrated by his labours in Human and Comparative Ana- 

 tomy, so illuminated by geometric science and algebraic calculation, 

 first saw the light in the Proceedings of this Academy. In this re- 

 markable work Dr. Haughton has ably shown the principle of Least 

 Action in nature, by which he means that physical work is efi'ected by 

 means of the existing arrangement of muscles, bones, and joints, with 

 a less expenditure of force than could be possible under any other 

 arrangement, so that any alteration would be a positive disadvantage 

 to the animal. The a^^plication of this principle, he considers, is pro- 

 bably of wider occurrence in nature than these instances show, and 

 may give us some slight glimpse of the mechanism by which the con- 

 servation of species in nature is secured. 



Speaking of the conservation of the solar system as dependent on 

 certain well-known conditions regulating the motions of the several 

 bodies of which that system consists, he observes — I quote his words — 

 " that it is a matter of indifference whether these conditions were di- 

 rectly imposed by the will of the Divine Contriver, or were the indirect 

 result of some former state of the system. In either case, these condi- 

 tions are equally the foreseen result of the contrivance. If the present 

 state of the solar system be the result, according to fixed laws, or some 

 pre-existing state of that system, it may be said, in the language of 

 Naturalists, to have been evolved out of its former state ; but in such an 

 evolution there was nothing left to chance ; it was all foreseen, and the 

 evolution itself presided over by the Divine mind that planned the 



