duty, but in addition are willing to advance a step further, and 

 to contribute your share not merely to the well-being of the 

 Institute, but also to the grand interests of knowledge, you can 

 do so, not only without interfering with your other pursuits, or 

 subjecting yourself to any toilsome or disagreeable task, but 

 with a positive increase of pleasure, and the certainty that you 

 are adding to your immediate usefulness in whatever sphere 

 your lot may be cast. And this, by leaving the station of pas- 

 sive observers, and joining the ranks of science militant. We 

 are all of us, even in spite of ourselves, observers ; the posses- 

 sion of the organs of sense deprives us almost of the power of 

 remaining wholly ignorant of the great operations of nature 

 that surround us on every hand. But so long as we neglect 

 to impress these phenomena on our recollection, by recording 

 them for examination by ourselves or others, our observation, 

 however precise and accurate it may be, is utterly valueless. 

 And not only valueless, but by constantly repeating the same 



feel ; and instead of making our senses contribute to the in- 

 tellectual supply, which is almost as necessary to the health 

 and strength of the mind, as is food to that of the body, we 

 wilfully deprive ourselves of their advantages, and counteract 

 so far the design of our creation. In some of the sciences 

 which are thence termed experimental, we are able by repeat- 

 ing the phenomena we are engagetl in studying, to arrive at 

 positive results with ease and rapidity ; but in the greater num- 

 ber of them the phenomena are such that we cannot repeat 

 them by any experiments in our power, but are obliged to wait 

 until they again occur in the regular course of nature. To 

 enal l »1 f e to make any approach towards a know- 

 ledge of such phenomena, or of the laws Avhich govern them, 

 we must observe each of tiiem as it occurs, and not trusting to 

 mere recollection, record our observations, if possible, on the 

 spot, or as soon afterwards as circumstances will permit, and 

 before we have forgotten any of the attendant circumstances. 

 To do this with the certain prospect of benefitting science, it is 

 not necessary that we should be familiar with scientific pur- 

 suits, or even with the particular branch to which our situa- 



