Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



of Ireland. — was no more than the public recognition of the emi- 

 nence he had won in these two spheres of his activity. IS'o 

 occupant of our Chair has ever exceeded him in zeal for the 

 honour and interests of the Academy ; and none certainly has 

 entertained a higher view of its importance and possibilities. "What 

 that view was is well set out in his Presidential Address " On the 

 Function of an Academy, in especial of the Royal Irish Academy," 

 delivered from the Chair of the Academy on February 28th, 1906 — 

 an address which, though composed under somewhat acute physical 

 disabilities, adequately indicates his conception alike of the objects 

 which we should set before us here, and the means by which we may 

 best seek to attain them. In that address, which embodied, as he 

 observed, the thoughts of one "who had spent most of his life in 

 close connexion with the Academy," Atkinson insisted strongly on the 

 necessity of combining imagination and sympathy with that scientific 

 analysis of facts which he considered indispensable. "Learned 

 associations, with special aims, can be safely en trusted, "he considered, 

 "with the duty of accumulating masses of fact; but the 

 Academy should keep in view the not less imperative necessity of 

 correlation and theory" — "the process of accumulating facts is in 

 itself liable to be rather discouraging unless there is something of the 

 shaping spirit of the imagination about them, issuing in some attempt 

 at even hypothetic colligation." This was the key-note of the address ; 

 and many who listened to it must have felt how fully his own practice 

 had been in accord with his precept. For those who recall Atkinson's 

 tenure of the Chair will remember how constantly and how success- 

 fully he ever sought in summing up our discussions here to place 

 every contribution to our proceedings in its proper relation to the 

 general body of knowledge on the subject to which it related, and 

 how fond he was of emphasizing the point in which the paper 

 appealed, as he urged that every paper should, to "the general 

 interest of human beings." 



Of the extent of Atkinson's attainments in those varied depart- 

 ments of linguistic study in which he obtained so great a mastery, it 

 is impossible to offer any adequate appreciation here. Some notion 

 of their breadth and range may, however, be derived from the list, 

 printed as an Appendix to this notice, of his miscellaneous papers, 

 particularly his contributions to oiu' ovsn Proceedings, and to the pages 



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