134 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



to us as observers of nature, and students of the past. 

 We cannot do everything — we can do few things well : — 

 well if we can do any one thing with satisfaction to 

 ourselves and make any real contribution to the profit and 

 pleasure of our generation ; if we can only add to the 

 general store of information, or keep alive the general 

 pursuit of knowledge, and assist in training those faculties 

 of observation and comparison by which knowledge is 

 attained. And our various meetings help us to realise 

 all this. For who that reflects can have failed to notice 

 the variety and the extent of the subjects of discussion 

 which arise as we drive or walk through the chosen district 

 of our excursion ? The limitation is seen in every direction. 

 We cannot all answer the same kind of questions that 

 are asked, and we become conscious that we are not 

 all alike interested in the same subjects; we can only 

 give information in that particular branch of knowledge 

 which by choice or necessity we have pursued ; and it 

 may be that we can only satisfy a curiosity which 

 approaches a subject from the same point as ourselves, 

 and feel how imperfect is our knowledge when questioned 

 by one who comes to the subject from another direction, 

 or with a different interest. 



Then again, perhaps, one of the greatest lessons I at 

 least have learned, if not for the first time, yet more 

 thoroughly, is the limitation of time. Time is a very limited 

 quantity, and the time at our disposal is especially so ; and 

 this is the more observable because the demands upon 

 that time by the modern conditions of society are so 

 great. There are but few men of leisure : those who 

 might have been such in the " good old days " now find 

 themselves occupied in the affairs of society, in some one 

 or other of its organisations, and a great part of our 

 studies is of necessity rather a recreation than a serious 

 pursuit. The sense of duty makes such a demand upon 

 our time that we are fain to use the veriest fragments 

 of it to gratify our desire to know the processes of nature, 

 or the habits of birds and beasts, or to trace the develop- 



