64 
The Presideiif s Address. 
The President then delivered the following address : 
The President's Address /or the year 1859. 
By Dr. Lankester. 
It was not till the time came that I had to prepare the 
address which is annually delivered by your president_, that 
I have felt the office as one otherwise than pleasant. When^ 
however, I came to examine the elaborate, careful, and some- 
times original addresses delivered to you by former presidents 
of this Society, I felt that in order to do justice to my 
position and your selection, 1 had a task of no ordinary 
difficulty to perform. Standing in the position of men so 
eminent for their scientific acquirements, as Lindley, Owen, 
Bell, Bowerbank, Busk, and Carpenter, I should have been 
glad if the task of criticising your proceedings and recording 
the progress of microscopical science could for one year have 
been omitted altogether. I must therefore throw myself on 
your kind consideration Avhilst I endeavour to present you with 
a resume for the past years of the labours of our Society, and 
the advancement of microscopical science. 
The present is the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Micro- 
scopical Society, and the fact that we now meet under more 
auspicious circumstances, and with larger prospects of success- 
ful labour, than at any previous period in the history of the 
Society, show clearly that those who laid the foundations of 
this Society knew that there was a demand and a place for 
such a combination. In the organization of any human in- 
stitution, it will never do to look too closely at the principles 
on which it is founded, but rather to seek for the practical 
advantages in which it may result. It has often been urged 
against our Society that a combination of men to work with 
an instrument is unscientific, and that we might as well have 
a telescopical, or barometrical, as a microscopical society. 
This objection is after all against our name and not against 
our objects, and if we can by hoisting the sign of the micro- 
scope best indicate to men of science what we are about, 
then I think the name Microscopical has an advantage. The 
founders of this Society had two great objects in view. First, 
the improvement of the instrument called the microscope ; 
and secondly, the recording and discussing the objects which 
were observed by its agency. Although when these two 
objects are looked at separately, they may seem as the 
