23 



with saw and chisel, at an eqnal distance on the other side the mid- 

 line of the skull, and lo 1 he finds the fellow-tooth of that which, 

 having enormously outgrown its fellow, men have wrongly called the 

 Unicorn. 



It is, then, a careful search after the relations of every fact, 

 that alone can enable any fact to be safely asserted as a true one. 

 Men had seen rocks and fossils long before the time of Lyell : but 

 it may be said, with thorough truth, that it was LyelFs putting 

 forth, and giving proof of, the proposition that the changes that are 

 to be seen on the earth's surface are due to causes now in opera- 

 tion, that first made Geology a Science ; and thus established one 

 point of Unity which everything else has since clustered round and 

 illustrated. And it seems to me that the very remarkable series 

 of observations recorded by Mr. Eainey, of St. Thomas's Hospital, 

 in his late work " On the mode of formation of shells of animals, 

 of bone, and of several other structures, by a process of molecular 

 coalescence demonstrable in certain artificially-formed products," 

 heralds discoveries equal in importance, while similar in kind, to 

 the great truth which Lyell first put forth. The reverent sense of 

 admiration which contemplates Unity and design and order in all 

 things, is a far nobler sense than that mere vacant Wonder which 

 sees, indeed, a marvel, but understands it not, and is afraid to try to 

 understand it. The mere looker at the solitary naked thing which 

 he calls a fact, is but an Idiot by the side of him who knows that 

 every individual thing he sees is the illustration of some far wider 

 fact — some Unity in nature, which makes it necessary for him to 

 turn the illustration over and over in every possible shape, if he 

 would hope to get at any true light, and to be anything other than 

 a vacant wonderer or a hollow theorizer. 



But I have detained you too long. Let me only add that, if this 

 Association is to become a useful means in the progress of the 

 science whence we take our name, it must be by its members put- 

 ting, one and all, their shoulders to the wheel. Our very basis rests 

 on the giving of a united effort for a common end. It is not any 

 two or three of us that can carry the w r ork out. Tor myself, unex- 

 pectedly asked to take this Chair, I have only consented to do so 

 because I would not be backward to help in what I believe to be a 

 good work ; but I can only do it with the avowal that my engage- 



