1895.] 



President's Address. 



Ill 



happening to plants and animals — vines, silkworms, birds, cattle, and 

 mankind — Pasteur was forced to take np the question, as of supreme 

 practical importance, " Whence came these microbes, and what are 

 their antecedents ? " From warmth and moisture, as we see by turning* 

 up a stone in a field, I was told forty years ago by an Arran farmer well 

 versed in the popular literature of the day. We are sometimes told 

 the same thing in scientific journals of 1895 under the more learned 

 disguise perhaps of abiogenesis, or the fortuitous concourse of atoms, 

 not tested by the calculus of probabilities. Without wasting words 

 to prove theoretically that, while stones falling together may, as we all 

 believe they have actually done, make a solar system with a habitable 

 planet or planets, they cannot make a man, or a microbe, or an organic 

 cell with its property of heredity, Pasteur set about practically to 

 trace the antecedents of every microbe he met with, and he found 

 for it in every case a living thing, whether in the air, or in water, or 

 in earth. During nearly all the latter part of his life and to the end 

 Pasteur devofced himself to biological research, and to vigorous 

 practical realisation of its benefits for the world. 



Turning now to the business of the Royal Society since our last 

 Anniversary Meeting, I am glad to be able to report that excellent 

 progress has been made with the ' Catalogue of Scientific Papers.' 

 Yol. xi, of the Catalogue, under authors' names, completing the 

 alphabet, is on the eve of issue, and the Supplementary Volume is 

 far advanced. 



The movement which led to the inception of the Catalogue dates 

 back forty years — to the first meeting of the British Association in 

 Glasgow, when Professor Henry, of Washington, communicated a 

 proposal for the publication of a catalogue of philosophical memoirs 

 scattered throughout the Transactions of Societies in Europe and 

 America, with the offer of co-operation on the part of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. 



The proposal was referred to a committee consisting of Mr. Cay- 

 ley, Mr. Grant, and Mr. Gabriel Stokes. The year after, at the 

 Cheltenham meeting, this committee propounded a scheme for a 

 catalogue, embracing the mathematical and physical sciences, to 

 include both authors' names and subjects. Besides Transactions 

 and Proceedings of Societies, journals, ephemerides, volumes of 

 observations, and other collections not coming under these heads 

 were to be indexed. 



This scheme came before the Royal Society in March, 1857, in con- 

 sequence of a request made by General Sabine at the instance of the 

 British Association. Considerable discussion took place, and even- 

 tually it was decided to prepare a manuscript catalogue of periodical 

 works in the Royal Society's library, to include all the sciences, the 

 question of printing being deferred ; and to do the work at the 



