The Presidenfs 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, siDgle, 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 
