235 



rendered to the Society of the measures taken, and the results 

 obtained. 



At an earlier period little could have been said except as to our 

 hopes and expectations : we can now point to results ; and each 

 succeeding year, as researches draw to a close, new matters of 

 interest will arise requiring your especial notice. 



You have all no doubt observed that as science advances, truth 

 has to be sought out under every variety of circumstances. Sometimes 

 the investigation is easy and inviting, at other times laborious and 

 perhaps repulsive. When there is an immediate prospect of striking 

 discoveries, the interest of the subject brings many into the field, 

 and there is often even a vigorous contest for priority ; where how- 

 ever the only prize to be obtained is a few dry facts, important in 

 themselves, as opening the way to further progress, but otherwise 

 perhaps of little interest, direct encouragement is necessary. We 

 cannot overrate the importance of collecting facts: the whole history 

 of the inductive sciences shows that without facts discovery cannot 

 progress; that we must, in fact, work the rock if we wish to extract 

 the ore. Where there is much labour and little fame in collecting 

 facts, an impulse is given by associations ; the labour is undertaken, 

 and the work accomplished ; but often more than labour is necessary: 

 the facts are not to be obtained without cost, and the cost may be 

 much too great to be conveniently borne ; it is then that the Council 

 assists ; the object is accomplished ; and an opening made for the 

 farther advance of scientific discovery. In disposing of the Govern- 

 ment Grant, your Council have endeavoured to take a wide view of 

 the interests of science; and therefore in constituting the Committee 

 to decide upon the applications for assistance have passed their own 

 limits, and have associated with themselves an equal number of 

 fellows, selected so as to ensure to each department a fair represen- 

 tation. They were thus made aware of the views and wishes of 

 other Societies, and in more than one instance they have been requested 

 by the British Association to assist that body in researches which 

 seem entitled to national aid. By thus administering their trust, 

 more is effected than ' the mere results that are obtained by its 

 assistance, for it leads to a more perfect union, a more effective co- 

 operation among men of science, and it tends to place the Royal 

 Society in the position which it was originally designed to hold, — the 

 centre of the system of our intellectual universe, round which the 

 other luminaries of this land pursue each its own orbit. 



In applying this grant for the present year, the same principles as 

 in previous years have been taken as a guide, viz. the value of the 

 results expected, and the improbability of their being obtained with- 

 out pecuniary assistance. Two grants have reference to a branch 

 of Physics still very obscure, but every day increasing in importance ; 

 the relation of the molecular actions which formerly were attributed 

 to imponderable fluids, but now are generally considered modes of 

 motion or power. Grove's views as to their correlation are familiar 

 to you, and are now in fact receiving a rigorous verification from the 

 researches of Joule and Thomson. The first has shown by elaborate 



