992 Western Society of Naturalists. 
While our community of interests, this overlapping and inter- 
mingling of methods, brings us into closer fellowship than if this 
were an academy of sciences merely, so the motive that induces us 
must give our meetings an air of cordiality, of mutual gratitude, 
and good will. He who reads me a paper embodying results of 
research—the finished product of his work—may do it for my 
benefit, or possibly for his own—it sometimes takes evidence to 
determine which; but he who takes me into his shop, and shows 
me just how and with what he works, exposes to me the skilled 
methods which have yielded the results I admire and emulate, does 
that for me, there is no doubt about it. 
We may be sure that the contributors to our programmes will 
be governed by a generous wish to share with each other the most 
precious items of their knowledge, those on which they especially 
depend for their own professional success. 
‘hen we shall profit greatly, beyond a doubt, by the knowledge 
gained of the state and progress of science and education in our 
midst, as we hold our successive meetings in the various centres of 
education and research throughout our territory ; and thus we shall 
learn what is the best thing which we as a Society can do for science 
in this region, and in each part of this region, from year to year, 
and shall be prepared always to welcome intelligently, and readily 
- to assimilate the new energies penetrating to our midst—avoiding, 
on the one hand, that attitude of selfish and obstinate conservatism, 
which, acting on the unprincipled motto, “After us the deluge,” 
would sweep back the future with its burden of progress; and, on 
the other hand, rapidly, but genially, toning down the crude and 
intolerant egotism of the occasional brand new man, who thinks 
to himself, “ Before me chaos.” And so we shall hold, I hope, to — 
the golden mean of vigorous and rapid, but continuous and har- 
monious, growth. 
But the scientist is also a citizen, and all the more a citizen the 
more a scientist he is, if he knows his own interest and duty. His 
social responsibilities, like those of all other men, increase with hie 
capacity, with his possible importance as a factor in the social 
scheme; and he has a special social interest due to the fact that the 
higher the grade of his work, the more important to him, the mof? 
nearly indispensable, indeed, is a high grade of social organization 
