I860.] ( 727 ) 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 

 OF SCIENCE. 



MEETING AT BIRMINGHAM, September, 1865. 

 The President's Address. 



There are periods in the career of every fortunate adventurer, 

 especially in that of a trader, when a lull supervenes upon long- 

 continued activity and a series of successes. 



The natural occupations of such a brief period of repose, are a 

 careful investigation of accounts ; a stock-taking ; the preparation of 

 an accurate balance-sheet ; and, as the sequence of these, a very com- 

 fortable kind of feeling that, whatever may lie hidden in the future, 

 the past and present have at least nothing in them to be regretted, 

 and are fit subjects for rejoicing and congratulation. Of course on 

 such occasions the " managing man " plays the most conspicuous part, 

 and comes in for a large share of the credit, if not on the balance- 

 sheet, at least of the honour of having aided in producing such a 

 gratifying document. Then it is that he is taken into the special 

 confidence of " the house," perhaps into partnership, and then he finds 

 the long labour of years crowned with an honourable reward. 



Professor Phillips was for a long period of years the " managing 

 man " of the " British Association for the Advancement of Science." 

 He was at its foundation, and until very recently was its general 

 secretary. His name is associated with all its successes ; and in its 

 poorer days, when the great mass of laymen thought little of the 

 movement, he was as hopeful as he is to-day, and followed it through 

 its stage of probation. Now a period of repose has come in the 

 scientific world, and Professor Phillips, who is made the head of the 

 concern for the year, has struck a balance sheet ; talks to the partners 

 concerning their past successes, fights their battles o'er again, reminds 

 them what they said and did when they were young beginners, and 

 what they think, and say, and do in the hey-day of their prosperity. 



" Such, gentlemen," he says, " are some of the thoughts which fill 

 the minds of those who, like Brewster, and Harcourt, and Forbes, 

 and Murchison, and Daubeny, stood anxious but hopeful at the cradle 

 of this British Association, and who now meet to judge of its strength 

 and measure its progress. When, more than thirty years ago, this 

 Parliament of Science came into being, its first child-language was 

 employed to ask questions of nature ; now, in riper years, it founds 

 on the answers received further and more definite inquiries directed 

 to the same prolific source of useful knowledge." 



Is it not as we have said of the commercial adventurer ? 



" First, we embarked poor upon the great sea of thought, inquiry, 

 and investigation, and were content to earn shillings : with the 

 shillings we set out again, and returned with sovereigns ; and now we 



