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The Earl ot Harrowby, K.G. — My lords, ladies, and gentlemen, I have 
been asked to move the acceptance of this report, and that it be printed 
and circulated amongst the members. I am not the fittest person to 
take so prominent a part in your proceedings, inasmuch as I have rarely 
had the opportunity of attending the meetings of the Institute. The 
infirmity under which I labour as to hearing, makes attendance at meetings 
where discussions are going on distressing and unprofitable to myself, and 
therefore I seldom attend them. But at the same time I have had the 
advantage of reading our valuable and useful Journal of Transactions, and 
it has been a very great pleasure to me to observe the important subjects 
which have been handled, and the able manner in which they have 
been considered. They have been considered in a fair and open way 
Every difficulty has been suggested, and the discussion has considerably 
advanced the object that was proposed. When this Institute was first 
started, under circumstances of considerable discouragement, there appeared 
to be a sort of dead set of the scientific current against all our most cherished 
feelings, principles, and beliefs. People, from some cause or other, partly 
I think by the excess to which that scientific current ran, became alarmed, 
and I have reason to hope that the current itself has been considerably 
checked. But when we have seen the excesses in which the normal sobriety 
of science has been changed for wild speculation, and the sober spirit 
ot induction has been abandoned for conjecture, I think the popular 
feeling that science and religion were of necessity antagonistic — that if you 
believed science you were hostile to religion, and that only by abandoning 
science could you be true to religion — was a state of things much to 
be deplored. I cannot but hope there is great reason to believe that 
this feeling is very much disappearing, and that we may flatter our- 
selves that the ancient alliance between religion and science, and which 
has distinguished science and ennobled it — this connection of the knowledge 
of the works of God with the belief in His existence and attributes — this 
ancient alliance which was formed so strongly under the care of Newton > 
Boyle, Leibnitz, and many others, may in our time be revived. I think I 
have heard it said that there is a friend of ours who has had the opportunity 
of conversing with many men of science, and who, as became his station, 
did not disdain to touch upon questions of religion and converse on them, 
who has found that 99 out of 100 concurred with him in reverence for 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. These things are very encouraging. 
They encourage men to hold up their heads under troubles and difficulties, 
and not despair in the good cause, the good cause in which we believe the 
Almighty himself may take a part in defence of His own authority. With 
regard to the special topics of the report, I have only to remark upon the 
encouragement we receive from the conditions of our own Association. We 
find our numbers increasing largely, our resources improving ; and we find 
the circulation of our journal, which is held to be one of the most important 
elements of our work, constantly increasing. And, I think, we may take 
