ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 5 



— the part played by Science as a factor in Civilisation. In 

 addressing ourselves to such a theme,, it may be remarked that 

 the constitution of our Society is sufficiently wide to include 

 subjects outside the realm of merely physical science : the main 

 drift and tendency of our work however, as in the Royal Society 

 of England, has been in that specific direction, and for that reason 

 it will be advantageous to confine ourselves to reviewing the part 

 played by the physical sciences, rather than by Science in the 

 more comprehensive sense of the word. 



In focussing our attention upon special activities, there is 

 always a danger of appearing to have ignored others of equal 

 dignity and energy : by way of anticipating this, it is perhaps 

 desirable to at once say, that, in tracing the incidence of scientific 

 activity, no attempt is made at discriminating between what is to 

 be credited to physical science, as such; and what may be credited 

 to other sciences or other factors, no less potent, in human develop- 

 ment. The reactions and interactions of all are so complex as to 

 transcend any possibility of exact delimitation; and attempts at 

 outlining their operation quantitatively, are as fanciful as they 

 are futile. In human affairs it must therefore often suffice to 

 watch, as well as one may, the part played by each factor, with- 

 out uselessly essaying that precision of measurement which so 

 delights the mathematical mind, and which the genius of the 

 physicist demands as the consummation of knowledge. 



Civilisation yields, indeed, rather to qualitative than to quanti- 

 tative methods of analysis : it is not to be expressed in terms of 

 wealth or material monuments, or in physical things which lend 

 themselves to exact measurement, though these are in part its 

 measure, and in and through them it is in part manifested. On 

 the contrary, it is rather in the imponderable elements, in the 

 intellectual and spiritual energy, in the genius, force, character, 

 and solidarity of a nation or an age, that its degree of civilisation 

 is really expressed. Remembering this, we are not likely, when 

 Ave examine the functions of science, to forget that our view is 

 restricted : we are not likely to forget that the discipline of our 



