110 Proceedings of the British Association. 



which has not been actively employed in urging on the triumphant 

 march of its chariot wheels, and felt in his own person the high 

 excitement of success joined with that noble glow which is the result 

 of companionship in honourable effort. May such ever be the prevalent 

 feeling among us. True Science, like true Religion, is wide-em- 

 bracing in its extent and aim. Let interests divide the worldly, and 

 jealousies torment the envious! "We breathe, or long to breathe, a 

 purer empyrean. The common pursuit of Truth is of itself a brother- 

 hood. In these our annual meetings, to which every corner of Britain 

 — almost every nation in Europe sends forth as its representative 

 some distinguished cultivator of some separate branch of knowledge ; 

 where, I would ask, in so vast a variety of pursuits, which seem to 

 have hardly anything in common, are we to look for that acknowledged 

 source of delight which draws us together and inspires us with a sense 

 of unity ? That astronomers should congregate to talk of stars and 

 planets — chemists of atoms — geologists of strata — is natural enough ; 

 but what is there of equal mutual interest, equally connected with, and 

 equally pervading all they are engaged upon, which causes their hearts 

 to burn within them for mutual communication and unbosoming? 

 Surely, were each of us to give utterance to all he feels, we should 

 hear the Chemist, the Astronomer, the Physiologist, the Electrician, 

 the Botanist, the Geologist, all with one accord, and each in the 

 language of his own science, declaring not only the wonderful works 

 of God disclosed by it, but the delight which their disclosure 

 affords him, and the privilege he feels it to be to have aided in it. 

 This is indeed a magnificent induction — a consilience there is no re- 

 fusing. It leads us to look onward, through the long vista of time, 

 with chastened but confident assurance that Science has still other 

 and nobler work to do than any she has yet attempted ; work, which 

 before she is prepared to attempt, the minds of men must be pre- 

 pared to receive the attempt — prepared, I mean, by an entire con- 

 viction of the wisdom of her views, the purity of her objects, and the 

 faithfulness of her disciples. 



