50 TJie Royal Observatory of Scotland. 



the mere details of office work, to the general results on the 

 cultivation of science and the development of discovery, the 

 Visitors will perhaps hardly rest satisfied with the comple- 

 tion merely of an accustomed annual task, when that is shewn 

 to be insufficient for the advancing knowledge and require- 

 ments of the times. When other observatories are progress- 

 ing, the Board has shewn, by its recommendations to the 

 Government in past years, that it will not consent to this 

 one alone being retarded for want of any necessary mechani- 

 cal means, which a small sum of money could easily provide ; 

 and their late chairman laid it down that the astronomer was 

 in duty bound to be ever on the watch for instrumental im- 

 provements on every side, abroad as well as at home, and 

 that the fame of the visitors, the astronomer, and the obser- 

 vatory, would depend on the success with, and the extent to 

 which these improvements should be introduced from time 

 to time. 



" No one acquainted with the history of Astronomy, or with 

 that of the other sciences, but knows the propriety, nay, even 

 the necessity of these views. In proportion always as obser- 

 vation was cultivated, so did the science improve. As sure 

 as it was neglected for theory alone, so certainly did men 

 run into confusion and error. In these days we have, it is 

 true, a theory, arrived at by means of a vast amount of ob- 

 servation, and, therefore, generally right, nay, even absolutely 

 right in principle; yet the application of that theory to the 

 phenomena of the heavens, must in every instance depend 

 upon observation. In proportion as these are still improved, 

 theory can be applied with more exactness and success ; 

 while a long vista of discovery opens before us, when we find 

 that the art of observing is still very improvable. We only 

 require, then, to go forward in the path pointed out by 

 theory, and rendered possible by practice ; and we shall be 

 enabled thereby to mark our own age in the history of science 

 as one in which new facts of nature have been discovered, 

 and new truths developed ; and which will have shewn itself 

 a worthy successor to that of the Greeks, and of the highest 

 minds of all nations, by taking up the sum of knowledge 

 handed down to us by them, and transmitting it, with in- 



