64 
Mr. Jacques seconded Mr. Stoddart's motion, which was carried 
unanimously. 
The Hon. Secretary gave notice that at the next meeting he should 
move that Rule IX. be altered to read as follows : — 
"That all Ordinary Members subscribe seven shillings and sixpence 
per annum towards defraying the expenses of the Society, the 
subscription to commence at their entrance, and to be renewed at 
the Annual Meeting in May." 
The President then rose, and after expressing the pleasure he felt at 
again meeting the Society, read the following address. 
" The object of the members of this Society is to become acquainted, to 
the greatest extent of which they are capable, with all the phenomena 
presented by the varieties of inorganic matter, and by the various forms 
of organized beings. Our society is properly named a Naturalists' Society. 
We study Nature in all its aspects. Our work is practical not speculative. 
We seek to promote the progress of Positive Science in preference to 
studying the vague questions of pure Philosophy, or the abstractions of 
Metaphysical Philosophy. Our methods are mainly Inductive. The 
speculations of the ancients were Deductive. With the Greeks theories 
were devised, and deductions attempted, but without results. It is said 
that the ancient Astronomer Democritus asserted that the Milk}'- Way was 
a cluster of stars, but it remained for Galileo to demonstrate this fact. 
So Pythagoras and Plato are said to have enunciated a proposition 
respecting the attraction of bodies, resembling the grand discovery of 
Newton. But their idea must be pronounced only a fortunate conjecture, 
and on this account no deductions were made in explanation of the con- 
stitution of the universe. Newton, by studying and ascertaining the laws 
of the phenomena of attraction, discovered their relation with the squares 
of the distances. His generalization was gained by the Inductive process, 
the Baconian method. In this instance, the difference is manifest between 
the Speculative Philosophy of the ancient schools and the Positive Science 
of the moderns. The first was barren of results, while the latter, elabo- 
rated by inductive methods, has yielded truths of immense importance to 
the action of deductive processes. Our society will then avoid speculating 
on the essences, origin, and causes of things, and adhere to the study 
of the phenomena which they present. We must admit that the dreams 
of Philosophy have led on to the realities of science. Astrologers and 
alchymists were collecting facts for the future astronoiniT and chemist. 
The philosopher, who observed the fact of hydraulics, that on raising the 
piston-rod of a pump barrel, the water likewise ascended, was satisfied 
with the idea that "Nature abhors a vacuum." From this axiom no use- 
