The Meeting of the British Association. 2 13 
THE MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 
AT LEICESTER. 
; HE Leicester meeting (July 31st—August 7th) was not a large 
one, hut much good work was done in the Section Rooms, 
and the local arrangements were rather exceptionally good. 
Section K met under the presidency of Professor Farmer, who 
delivered an able and incisive address, calling attention to the 
prospects which are opening up of explaining vital phenomena in 
terms of chemistry and physics. His strictures on those who 
would “ explain the appearance of a structure on the ground of its 
utility” were severe. He stigmatised such supposed “ explanations ” 
as “ both superficial and unscientific ” and complained that they 
tend to “ bar the way of enquiry just where scientific investigation 
ought to commence,” this investigation consisting, of course, in the 
constant attempt “ to analyse our problems, as far as may be 
possible, into their chemical and physical components.” The rest 
of the address consisted of a very suggestive and interesting, though 
necessarily condensed, consideration of the present condition and 
future possibilities of such analysis in regard to very various 
phenomena, such as the alternation of reproductive and vegetative 
phases in certain Fungi, the phenomena of nuclear division, of 
heredity, and of gall-formation. If we might venture a word of 
criticism, it would be that the President’s remarks are likely to be 
thrown away upon those, if such there be, who really believe that 
the usefulness of a structure or process is a complete explanation 
of its appearance. Such a belief can only exist in the absence of 
the most elementary appreciation of the aims and methods of 
science. At the same time it is scarcely necessary to point out 
that usefulness is often, though not always, a condition of survival, 
and therefore, in so far, a partial explanation of persistence. The 
failure to get behind the teleological “bar” may be due to want of 
energy or capacity in the investigator, or to the inherent difficulty 
of the further analysis of the phenomena with which he is dealing, 
but scarcely to a wrong philosophical conception, since the logical 
problem presented is of the simplest kind. 
A large part of the time of the section was occupied in joint 
meetings with other sections. Thus there was a joint meeting 
with Zoology, Geology, and Geography, to hear Professor Conwentz, 
