296 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Bat one thing is obvious, viz., that whatever were the difficulties 
which, thirty or forty years ago, investigators of new facts and 
new principles had to encounter, these difficulties are tenfold 
greater now, and therefore help to overcome these difficulties 
ought now to be more ample. The first discoveries in all the 
sciences were made by methods and processes far more simple 
than are now serviceable. The first steps in astronomy were 
made by the human eye alone. After all the knowledge was 
collected, which the unaided eye could supply, the next advances 
in the science were made by telescopes — telescopes simple and 
rude at first, but soon superseded by others of greater size and 
more accurate construction, so as to admit of a farther pene- 
tration into the depths of ethereal space, and a more minute 
examination of the movements and forms of the planetary bodies. 
When an eclipse of the sun has to be observed, the only way of 
now proceeding is, besides employing highly improved telescopes, 
to have also the spectroscope, the polariscope, and photographic 
apparatus ; and, in order to use these instruments to the best 
advantage, large parties of observers must co-operate, and, at 
a great sacrifice of time and money, repair to favourable and 
probably remote spots on the earth’s surface. So it is with all the 
other sciences. To enable a chemist to make discoveries now in 
his science, lie must have apparatus and instruments ten times 
more numerous and expensive than those with which chemists 
formerly worked. The botanical physiologist can make no farther 
advances, except by means of powerful microscopes, which to his 
predecessor were unknown. For progress in meteorology, obser- 
vations by individuals, in a few districts once or twice a day, are 
no longer of much avail. There must be a complete network of 
observations made over large portions of the earth’s surface — 
and at least three or four times in the twenty-four hours. There 
must be self-recording instruments in particular districts, besides 
occasional ascents in a balloon. In short, there is no one science 
which can now be advanced by the same simple means which were 
available formerly. Science would stand still if improved methods 
were not resorted to. The difficulties, therefore, which men of 
science and scientific societies have to encounter in their researches 
are far greater than formerly, and what may have been a sufficient 
