988 Western Society of Naturalists. 
THE WESTERN SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS! 
BY S. A. FORBES. 
‘yen first presidential address of a new society may well have for 
its subject the society itself; and the first duty of those 
respunsible for such a society is to show its right to exist. There 
is only so much social power available for social purposes; why 
should we string a new belt to the already heavily burdened shaft, 
and tax the groaning engine with the movement of a new machine? 
Shall we interrupt and weaken the action of any existing agencies 
by this additional draft on the common stock of energy? or may 
we believe, on the contrary, that the final effeet of our organization 
will be to increase the energy and activity of the whole apparatus ; 
that it will react, in time, to supply power greater than that which 
it abstracts? In short, what are the objects and purposed uses of 
this Society of Western Naturalists? first, as to its own members ; 
and second, as to society at large. These questions I shall endeavor 
to answer—not authoritatively—for only the Society can spea 
with authority for itself—but by way of interpretation and personal 
suggestion, hoping at least to raise questions concerning our scope, 
intention, and relations, which you may answer finally according 
to the common wish and judgment. 
It seems proper, first, to say that in asking these questions, and 
in my attempts to answer them, I have in mind the present time, 
place, and conditions ; that I shall not treat of the work which this 
Society might and should perform if it were established in Europe 
or on the Atlantic seaboard, or if it were working in the twentieth 
century, but I shall inquire what are the ways in which we can 
most and best advance the study of our subjects in the present ume 
and the immediate future, taking as our starting point the state of 
knowledge, the conditions of progress, and the special problems 
presenting themselves now in the northern half of the MississipP! 
valley. ; 
And first, I remark, in phrase now temporarily classic, that “it 
is a condition and not a theory that confronts us.” In the course 
1 Presidential address delivered at Champaign, Ill., October 24, 1888. 
