444 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



drudgery of learning. Such drudgery is necessary in every science, especially 

 to the learners ; but let it be called by its proper name, research, without the 

 absurd qualification so common among sciolists of our age. Let this be my 

 last digression devoted to the work of the Academy. 



And so, living 'as we do in an atmosphere charged with political and 

 theological electricity, we have never experienced an explosion from within or 

 a persecution from without. We have escaped the dangers both of penury 

 and of patronage. We stand aloof from factions and parties — in this perhaps 

 unique in Ireland; we stand aloof even from the Universities, though we 

 welcome in our ranks those of their teachers who desire to be more than 

 schoolmasters. The task of educating the young, of combating not only 

 ignorance, but idleness and stupidity, not to speak of the blunders, of incom- 

 petent primary teaching — all this is a noble task, and many a fine man has 

 devoted his life unselfishly to those harassing duties. Eut far higher is, and 

 must ever be, the search after truth for its own sake, the deciphering of the 

 vast cryptogram of nature, the contemplation of the laws of matter and of 

 mind, which Aristotle — in this at one with his critics — thought the supreme 

 felicity attainable even by the gods. 



