82 [P roc . B.N.F.C., 



1874, and of the part which our Club has been permitted to take 

 in the advancement of Natural Science, before adverting parti- 

 cularly to our own operations I may be pardoned if I refer to an 

 event which, in common, I may say, with nearly all our fellow- 

 townsmen, we naturally have been led to view with particular 

 interest. 



I allude, of course, to the visit of the British Association to 

 Belfast. While not insensible of the honour conferred on our 

 provincial town by the appearance among us of that eminent 

 scientific body for the second time — and after a lapse of some 

 twenty-five years — I cannot refrain from making some observations 

 on one accompanying circumstance of that visit that has bestowed 

 on it an amount of notoriety hardly accorded to any other meeting 

 of the Association since its very formation. I refer to the inaugural 

 address of its learned President. I am not about to follow the 

 example set by Professor Tyndall by recklessly introducing into the 

 following remarks questions of a purely theological or even of a 

 metaphysical nature. I can conceive but one feeling among my 

 audilory were I to act so unadvisedly, and that feeling would be, 

 I am persuaded, one of entire disapproval. ' That a religious 

 teacher of any denomination should take advantage of his position, 

 while discussing scientific subjects, by introducing theological 

 topics, which he must have known to be distasteful to not a few of 

 his auditory, would be, in my judgment, little short of a breach of 

 faith, as well as a violation of the rules of good taste. And I 

 equally feel that I shall have the sympathy of all who now hear me 

 when I express the opinion that for a scientific professor, or a 

 scientist (as some prefer to designate themselves now-a-days), on a 

 similar occasion to introduce topics of this description would be 

 equally reprehensible ; with this additional consideration, that the 

 latter is going further in diverging fiom the path of good taste and 

 good feeling than the former, inasmuch as he is volunteering to 

 enter upon debatable ground, entirely alien from his proper 

 subject and his legitimate calling. 



Truth obliges me to state my conviction, uttered, let me assure 



