of Edinburgh, Session 1883-84. 
451 
Monday, 4zth February 1884. 
The Eight Hon. LOED MONCEEIFF, President, 
in tlie Chair. 
1. The President delivered the following Address, giving a 
Eeview of the Hundred Years’ History of the Society. 
At the close of our last Session, I undertook to call the attention of 
the Fellows at the commencement of the present to the history of 
the Eoyal Society, taking as my theme the completion of its 
hundredth anniversary. Circumstances have accidentally delayed 
for a month or two the fulfdment of that engagement ; hut I now 
proceed, to the best of my power, to discharge it. It is a very 
wide theme, and it will at once occur to you that a review of the 
topics which have engaged the attention of the Society during that 
period, rightly performed, would be equally beyond my ability and 
your patience. I should have to speak an encyclopaedia, in many 
volumes. I can, however, but attempt some desultory and frag- 
mentary reflections, which may not be devoid of interest, on “ the 
Foundation and the Founders of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh,” 
as they appear to us in retrospect through a vista of a hundred 
years. 
There is no doubt now of our right to claim our centenarian 
honours. The Charter which we hold is dated on the 29th of March 
1783. Several preliminary meetings were held for the election of 
offlce-bearers and the enactment of bye-laws, but the first meeting 
for the transaction of business was held on the 8th of December 1783. 
So that, had I been able to accomplish my task as I had intended, 
on the 4th of December 1883, I should have invited your attention 
to the proposed review, as nearly as might be, on the completion of a 
century of operative life on the part of the Eoyal Society. 
I think we may look back on that long history with pride, with 
pleasure, and with profit. The attainment of this centenarian mile- 
stone in the life of man, or of nations, or of institutions, always 
brings with it an element of sentiment — a suggestion both of per- 
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