PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 25 



recognising our mission, our object and condition of exist- 

 ence; nay our best enjoyment is to do that work which 

 brings its own reward of happiness to the human mind 

 when Nature reveals to us her wondrous secrets. 



Civilisation and the advancement of science march 

 together in unison : precise and exact reasons of the why 

 and wherefore of the phenomena of the universe, is the 

 direct outcome of modern research, so that if this century 

 or even this year be compared with its predecessor, we 

 shall find that the sublime commanding aspiration of the 

 poet, 



"Let knowledge grow from more to more," 



is now more than ever realised. And it is to labourers in 

 science I address myself, who taken collectively may be 

 recognised as the highest and most distinguished labour 

 party in existence, an estimate modest enough when one 

 considers that it is the dynamic potentiality of the science 

 worker, who has been true to his vocation, that has helped 

 to make the world what it is to-day, and it is a glory to be 

 enrolled in a labour party of the immortals that include the 

 names of Newton, Harvey, Dalton, Jenner, Banks, Faraday, 

 Clerk-Maxwell, Joule, Tyndall, Stokes, Hertz, Huxley, and 

 Kelvin. 



But above all the most brilliant aspect of science is its 

 perfect continuity, whereby each new fact dovetails with 

 all that has gone before, for the newly discovered fact 

 apparently isolated, naked and implacable, is by and by 

 found to fill a niche in the edifice of science, and indeed 

 drops like a jewel with marvellous fitness and measure 

 into its own indispensable and appropriate setting. With 

 continuity in progress comes the idea of continuity in space 

 from our own bodies right away through the ether to the 

 outposts of the universe, a thought we owe to the inspir- 

 ation of Lord Kelvin, and now practically realised every 



