president's address. 



from our own canon of Scripture: "With him is wisdom and 

 strength, he hath counsel and understanding." 1 



The aesthetic character of Natural History, therefore, prevents 

 the results of its cultivation from being worked out with the pre- 

 cision of a logical machine, such as with correct data of observa- 

 tion and calculation would be quite sufficient to formulate the 

 conclusions of physical investigation. According as the percep- 

 tion of the relations of organic beings among themselves becomes 

 more and more enlarged, the interpretation of these relations will 

 vary within limits; but we will be continually approximating 

 higher mental or spiritual truth. 



This kind of truth can never be revealed to us by the study of 

 inorganic aggregations of the universe. The molar, molecular 

 and polar forces, by which they are formed, may be expressed, so 

 far as science has reduced them to order, by a small number of 

 simply formulated laws, indicative neither of purpose nor intelli- 

 gence, when confined within inorganic limits. In fact, ti - 

 the number of chemical elements known to us should be as large 

 as it is, and go on increasing almost yearly with more minute in- 

 vest igations. To all appearance, the mechanical and vital struc- 

 ture of the universe would remain unchanged, if half of them 

 were struck out of existence. 



Neither is there any evidence of intelligence or design in the 

 fact that the side of the moon visible to us exhibits only a mass 

 of volcanoes. 



Yet upon the earth, without the volcano and the earthquake, 

 and the elevating forces of which they are the feeble indications, 

 there would be no permanent separation of land and water ; con- 

 sequently no progress in animal and -vegetable life beyond " hut is 

 possible in the ocean. To us, then, as sentient beings, the vol- 

 cano and the earthquake, viewed from a biological standpoint, 

 have a profound significance. 



It is indeed difficult to see in what manner the student of i 



physical science is brought to a knowledge of any 

 intelligence in the arrangement of the Universe. The poet, 

 spired by meditating on the immeasurable abyss of space, and 

 transcendent glories of the celestial orbs has declared, 



j of 



