1878.] 
The British Association 
499 
VI. THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 
|EHE British Association held its 1878 meeting at Dublin, 
in August last. This, the forty-eighth meeting of the 
Association, and the third visit it has paid to Dublin, 
was one of the most successful meetings ever held, the 
number of Members and Associates present being 2756. 
Mr. Spottiswoode, President, in his Address first made 
some remarks upon the purposes, operations, and prospers 
of the Association, of which he has been for many years 
the Treasurer. He then passed to the consideration of the 
external aspects and tendencies of Mathematical Science. 
Viewed from a mathematician’s own point of view, ma- 
thematics offer so few points of contact with the ordinary 
experiences of life or modes of thought, that any account 
of its actual progress must, he said, fail in the first requisite 
of an Address — namely, that of being intelligible. But 
although in its technical character mathematical science 
suffered the inconveniences, while it enjoyed the dignity, of 
its Olympian position, still in a less formal garb, or in dis- 
guise, it is found present at many an unexpected turn ; and 
although some may never have learnt its special language, 
not a few have, all through their scientific life, and even in 
almost every accurate utterance, like Moliere’s well-known 
character, been talking mathematics without knowing it. 
It is, moreover, a faCt not to be overlooked that the appear- 
ance of isolation, so conspicuous in mathematics, appertains 
in a greater or less degree to all other sciences, and perhaps 
also to all pursuits in life. In its highest flight each soars 
to a distance from its fellows. Each is pursued alone for 
its own sake, and without reference to its connection with, 
or its application to, any other subject. The pioneer and 
the advanced guard are of necessity separated from the 
main body, and in this respeCt mathematics does not mate- 
rially differ from its neighbours. In his preface to the 
“ Principia,” Newton gives expression to some general ideas 
which may well serve as the key-note for all future utter- 
ances on the relation of mathematics to natural, including 
also therein what are commonly called artificial, pheno- 
mena : — “The ancients divided mechanics into two parts, 
2 , K2 
