REPORT. 
13 
the most extensively beneficial of all the discoveries of the 
present age. The same habits of thought, which at one time 
were employed in watching the instincts of the cuckoo , 1 at 
another, seized upon the preventive power of vaccination, 
and introduced into the world a practice by which the lives 
of millions have been saved. 
Of still higher importance than any thing which has yet 
been mentioned, is the moral effect which arises from inves¬ 
tigating the laws and meditating upon the works of nature. 
To trace the hand of creative wisdom, whether manifested in 
its sublimest operations, or in the most minute contrivances 
for the smallest objects of its care, has a tendency, beyond 
all other occupations, to elevate the mind of man. And if 
improvement be the true standard of utility, what can be 
more improving, and therefore what more useful, than those 
studies which have furnished such various and striking illus¬ 
trations of the most momentous of all truths ? Associated 
together with undivided sentiments, in contemplating subjects 
at once so edifying and attractive, we meet one another in 
an instructive and harmonious intercourse ; and science, with 
a secret moral charm, allays the animosity of parties, and 
pours a friendly feeling over the most discordant minds. 
Impressed with these considerations, the Council have not 
scrupled to urge the claims of the Institution as strongly as 
1 See the Memoir—“ On the natural history of the cuckoo, by Mr. Edward 
Jenner:” Phil. Transactions, (1788,) vol 78, p. 219.—or, Phil, Trans, abridged 
by Hutton, &c, vol, 16, p, 432, 
