1881.] 



President's A ddress. 



57 



rounded as were the giants of former days. Nevertheless the danger 

 is a real one and is to be met with at every tarn. 



But the part of Cassandra is neither agreeable to the player nor 

 welcome to the audience ; nor is it indeed necessary that I should play 

 it ; for, even although what T have said be true, it is still, I trust, not 

 the whole truth. I have already spoken of noble exceptions ; but, 

 although noble exceptions may go far to redeem the character of a 

 nation or of a period, and example may have influences of which we 

 hardly dream, yet for a general remedy I am more inclined to look to 

 the natural course of events, and to what is often loosely spoken of as 

 "things curing themselves." Such a cure may perhaps come about 

 somehow on this wise. So multitudinous are the workers in every 

 science, so numerous are the channels through which their discoveries 

 are chronicled, that it is becoming every year more difficult for even 

 the learned and the well read to say what is and what is not new, or 

 what has not been published before t Claims for novelty must, 

 therefore, as time goes on, be put forward with greater and greater 

 diffidence. The only originality that can be safely claimed will be 

 originality on the part of the investigator ; and the question of absolute 

 priority must be left to the verdict of time and of that sifting process 

 by which ultimately all discoveries will find their proper places in the 

 Temple of Science. 



When this stage is reached, and we are even now approaching it, 

 the fever of to-day may in a great measure subside and give place to 

 a more tempered, although still fervent, glow of aspiration. The 

 eagerness and haste to which we have become almost accustomed may 

 be chastened by the reflection that questions of priority are not to 

 be settled by a mere stroke of the pen, and that in the comparison of 

 rival claims the question of the quality of work will undoubtedly arise 

 and become interwoven with that of priority. And so, in the end, it 

 may come to pass that a half -understood experiment or a hastily 

 drawn conclusion may avail less than ever for establishing a reputa- 

 tion, and that, even for the purpose of winning the race, it may be 

 worth while to spend sufficient time in laying sure foundations and in 

 building a superstructure commensurate with that on which it stands 

 and well proportioned in all its parts. 



The transference of the Natural History Collections of the British 

 Museum to the new building at South Kensington is still in progress. 

 It is hoped that the building for the specimens preserved in spirits, as 

 well as the fittings for the zoological department, will be so far com- 

 pleted as to allow of the moving of that department during the 

 autumn of 1882. The lighting of the reading room by Siemens' 

 lamps is so far satisfactory, that it has been decided to keep that room 

 open in future until 8 p.m., instead of 7 p.m. This change, it is hoped, 

 will prove to be of substantial service to a large class of readers. 



