ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



By William M. Hamlet, f.i.c, p.c.s., 

 Government Analyst. 



[Delivered to the Royal Society of N. 8. Wales, May 2, 1900.'] 



" The fragmentary produce of much toil, 

 In a dim heap, fact and surmise together 

 Confusedly massed as when acquired. 



Paracelsus. 



The conception of the world, as a great kosmos or order, is 

 the primary condition of human progress. In the industrial 

 arts, in the rules of health, the methods of healing, the prepara- 

 tion of food, in morals, in politics every advance is an application 

 of past experience to new circumstances, in accordance with an 

 observed order of Nature. Philosophy consists in the conscious 

 recognition of this method, and in the systematic use of it for 

 the complete guidance of life. 



HieroTcles. 



The honour you conferred upon me in electing me as your 

 President, brings with it its own obligations and the consciousness 

 of the inadequacy of any efforts of mine to fulfil them in a manner 

 worthy of the Royal Society. 



There comes also the important question as to what rightly 

 constitutes the subject-matter of the Presidential Address : whether 

 it should be a retrospect of the scientific work of the year, an 

 announcement of something new in science, a history of science 

 brought to date, a discussion of some " burning question " or 

 merely a dissertation on some particular subject passing in the 

 mind of the President. At the outset I frankly confess my 

 inability to satisfy you with some of these good things, and I fall 

 back upon the latter course and proceed to unburden myself of 

 some thoughts that have come, unbidden perhaps, to my mind 

 during the year. Obviously the doings of the Society duriug the 

 period demands first attention, therefore, in common with the 



A— May 2, 1900. 



