ANNUAL MEETING. 



11 



THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, 



I regret that I must announce that owing to the pressure of 

 work, I have not been able to complete the address which I 

 intended to deliver to you, and I must candidly tell you that 

 I do not propose to deliver a formal address to-day, but I liope 

 you will allow it to be postponed, and I will reverse the maxim 

 that has been quoted to-day and say tunc 'pro nunc, if you will 

 allow me to do so. 



I might have written to say that I had not completed my 

 address. I had begun it ; but I thought it would be an ill 

 commencement of my career as your President if I did not 

 present myself in person to express my gratitude to you for 

 having done me the great honour of electing me as your 

 President ; and further I ought, I feel, to express the gratitude 

 of this Society to our late President, whose career as a man of 

 science was one that I should think no oue in Europe would 

 doubt, placed him in the very highest rank of scientific men. 



I may make an observation about him that is not confined to 

 the gratitude we owe his memory, and not confined to the 

 domination of his genius and his knowledge. 



I do not think anything can be found that is more important 

 to this Society, and to similar societies, than to show that men 

 of the highest rank in science, and with the greatest knowledge, 

 do not object to belong to a Society whose charter is to 

 investigate, boldly and thoroughl}', all subjects bearing on 

 religion and science with the view of showing that they are 

 not inconsistent with each other. I confess, and you will 

 permit me to say, perhaps, that I believe no time ever existed 

 in the history of the world when investigations of this sort 

 were more required. There is undoubtedly a more subtle 

 spirit of unbelief now than I think has prevailed for some time. 

 The pious and very good people who thought that the best way 

 to preserve the Scriptures and preserve the faith of men was by 

 suppressing scientific investigation made a great mistake. In 

 the first place you can no more suppress the exercise of the 

 intellect by human beings who are intelligent than you can still 

 the tide of the ocean ; and the only result w^as that men w^ere 

 led to doubt, because they were afraid of investigation. 



The charter of this Institute, as I understand, is to boldly 

 and fearlessly investigate every problem that bears on those 



