The President's Address. 



119 



ments secured the regard and admiration of the public. The 

 direction in which these have been exercised of late years lay 

 more peculiarly in the walks followed by other societies, 

 which he more frequently honoured by his presence and 

 valuable contributions, and by them his loss will be more 

 severely felt, and from them we may look more fittingly for a 

 narration of his life and labours. To them I will leave it then, 

 and at once proceed with what I was about to say regarding 

 a summary or view of the progress made during the previous 

 year or years in the sciences cultivated by the Society. The 

 desirableness of such periodical reviews or reports will not be 

 disputed ; and the general persuasion entertained of their 

 value is sufficiently indicated by three-fourths of the annual 

 Presidential addresses professedly aiming at giving such 

 reviews. And yet the practical results of such attempts are 

 far less satisfactory than might be expected. The student of 

 any department of science might naturally expect that, by 

 referring to an address of this nature, he would find a resume 

 or abridgment of the most important work that had been 

 done in that department during the previous year. But he 

 will generally find himself disappointed ; he will find refer- 

 ences to such proceedings and discoveries as he already 

 knows, but seldom to much beyond this. And the reason of it 

 is this : the scope of the address is usually too wide ; it 

 embraces too much ; and as the writer cannot omit notice of 

 the main discoveries which have been the ornament of the • 

 year, by the time he has gone over these his space is ex- 

 hausted, and more minute details are impossible. It is only 

 in societies having a very restricted, single, and direct object, 

 that it can be possible to give a comprehensive summary of 

 all the progress made during the past year. In a society 

 embracing so many, so large, and so well-laboured fields as 

 this does, it would obviously be impossible to compress into a 

 single address (even supposing any one individual were com- 

 petent to do so), a full or satisfactory resume of the progress 

 of the sciences in which we are interested during any one 

 year. It has, however, been suggested to me by our excel- 

 lent Secretary, that a less ambitious attempt might be more 

 within reach of success ; and that, by restricting the field 



