PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



By W. Mogford Hamlet, f.i.c., f.c.s., Government 

 Analyst for the State of New South Wales. 



[Delivered to the Royal Society of N. 8. Wales, May 5, 1909.] 



" The whole of modern thought is steeped in science ; it has 

 made its way into the works of our best poets, and even the mere 

 man of letters, who affects to ignore and despise science, is uncon- 

 sciously impregnated with her spirit, and indebted for his best 

 products to her methods. I believe that the greatest intellectual 

 revolution mankind has yet seen is now slowly taking place by 

 er agency." — Huxley, "Collected Essays," Vol. vni, p. 226. 



Continuity of thought and speech are preserved to us in 

 our common language, which it has been well said is a veri- 

 table museum of antiquities, for we possess among the 

 most ordinary words in common use, words more ancient 

 than the pyramids of Egypt. Emerson says that "as we 

 go back in history language becomes more picturesque, 

 until its infancy, when it is all poetry ; or all spiritual facts 

 are represented by natural symbols." And thus it is with 

 the simple word ' chair,' which comes down to us with a 

 long pedigree from the Sanscrit, through Norman channels, 

 and in early times meant a shelf, or bench; both 1 'bench ' 

 and ' chair ' being still used for the dignified position of a 

 judge or a University professor when speaking ex cathedra , 

 as well as for the speaking pedestal of the President of a 

 learned Society. With the old Norsemen, their highest 

 and holiest god, Woden, (Wotan) whose name is given to 

 this (Woden's day) our meeting-day of the Royal Society, 

 had his throne or chair the highest seat in Asgard, and 

 was then known by the name of Hlidskialf, which is still 



1 Max Muller, " Fors Fortuna," p. 2. 

 A— May 5, 190P. 



