PROCEEDINGS. 
ix 
of attractive fact wliich it has added to the sura of human know- 
ledge. Are all its stores of attractive fact worked out ? Surely 
not ! Did not Mr. Thurston go the other day to Paumban and 
return, if not exactly with a miraculous draught of fishes, at least 
with an all but miraculous draught of marine life ? Does not 
Mr. Henderson report that on all sides he finds new and most 
remarkable forms amongst the groups to which he has given 
special attention ? Has not Mr. Bourne added, after a few days' 
search, I think, as many as twenty-one new species of earth-worms 
to those already known ? I see some of you smile at the earth- 
worms, but I assure you they are becoming very serious person- 
ages. I once heard the greatest savant of our time — may I not say 
the Aristotle of the nineteenth century — the late Mr. Darwin — call 
out to another eminent man of science, ' I say, Lubbock ! you anti- 
quarians should respect the earth-worms. They have done more 
to preserve tesselated pavements than any other agency.' Even 
in botany, a department which has been longer worked, I suppose, 
in Madras than almost any other, Mr. Lawson, Mr. Gramble, and 
other of our friends have still many new worlds to conquer. But 
why should I go on ? The thing is too clear to need demon- 
stration. We want to bring all the observing power that can be 
applied either to art, to letters, or to science together, and to 
utilize it for the benefit of this old and very distinguished Society. 
Amongst the many striking mottoes of the later Middle Age, 
which were collected in a fascinating book by the Prussian states- 
man, Radowitz, there are few more applicable to the conduct of 
life than: ' Discs ut semper victur us, vice ut eras moriturus.' But 
in our relations to India I would reverse the maxim, and say, 
' Vive ut semper victurus, disce id eras moriturus.'' By the last part 
of the maxim so amended I mean to imply that we should keep 
our minds open to every new fact and impression which this 
country can give us, just as we should do if we had suddenly 
landed on a soil which, like the volcanic island Ferdinanda, 
might, before we had done learning half its secrets, sink back 
into the depths of the sea." 
