56 



Anniversary Meeting. 



[Nov. 30, 



most of the leading men have opportunities of meeting from time to 

 time, and for scientific purposes, is certainly true ; bat that they should 

 meet also on occasions when science is not too formal, is a thing which 

 has its uses. And a concurrence of minds more numerous and more 

 diversified than usual is sure to be fruitful of results. The whole 

 advantage of these meetings, however, depends ultimately and funda- 

 mentally on the presence of a strong scientific element, which, from 

 its own mere dignity and character, will repress all that is unworthy 

 and will leaven the whole lump. Acting on this principle' as a 

 scientific duty, many good men have attended these meetings ; and 

 although they may have approached them with some degree of 

 reluctance, few who during their attendance have taken their fair 

 share in the proceedings, have come away without having derived a 

 more favourable impression than that with which they entered. 



Of such gatherings, the late meeting of the British Association at 

 York was, if I may be permitted to express an opinion, a pattern and 

 exemplar. And although it cannot be expected that in every year 

 there will be so strong a muster as on the occasion of the fiftieth 

 anniversary, yet all well-wishers of the Association must feel that it 

 has entered upon its second half century with vigour and with 

 dignity, and that it now remains only for its future supporters to 

 maintain the high standard with which it has been handed down by 

 those who have gone before. 



It may be a matter of regret, although doubtless inevitable, that 

 the same causes which have affected the social, the intellectual, the 

 industrial, and the political life of our generation, and have made them 

 other than what they were, should affect also our scientific life ; but, as 

 a matter of fact, if science is pursued more generally and more 

 ardently than in former times, its pursuit is attended with more haste, 

 more bustle, and more display than was wont to be the case. Apart 

 from other reasons, the difficulty, already great and always rapidly 

 increasing, of ascertaining what is new in natural science ; the liability 

 at any moment of being anticipated by others, constantly present to 

 the minds of those to whom priority is of serious importance ; the 

 desire to achieve something striking, either in principle or in mere 

 illustration; all tend to disturb the even flow of scientific research. 

 And it is perhaps not too much to say that an eagerness to outstrip 

 others rather than to advance knowledge, and a struggle for relative 

 rather than for absolute progress, are among the dangerous tendencies 

 peculiar to the period in which we live. I do not, of course, for one 

 moment mean to imply that this tendency universally prevails ; for in 

 Science, as well as in other pursuits, I believe that the best of the 

 present would well stand comparison with the best of the past, and 

 that there are nowadays men in the mid-stream of life who are as 

 little affected by the eddies and back-waters with which they are sur- 



