22 
FIRST REPORT- 1831 . 
which we also knew the value, and for a fair representation of 
the obstacles opposed to our success. These different opinions 
have been weighed with the attention which they deserved; and 
I present this plan to the Meeting, as one of which all the bear¬ 
ings have been considered, and of which the deliberate consi¬ 
deration has led us to hope, that a great preponderance of ad¬ 
vantage may be derived from its adoption. 
“I propose then, Gentlemen, in the first place, that we should 
found a British Association for the Advancement of Sci¬ 
ence, having for its objects, to give a stronger impulse and more 
systematic direction to scientific inquiry, to obtain a greater de¬ 
gree of national attention to the objects of science, and a removal 
of those disadvantages which impede its progress, and to pro¬ 
mote the intercourse of the cultivators of science with one an¬ 
other, and with foreign philosophers. 
“ On the first and most important of these objects, some dif¬ 
ference of opinion may exist; a difference of opinion, I mean, 
as to the want in which we stand of a new Association, to give 
a stronger impulse and more systematic direction to scientific 
inquiry. 
“ I do not rest my opinion, Gentlemen, of this want upon any 
complaint of the decline of science in England, it would be a 
strange anomaly if the science of the nation were declining, 
whilst the general intelligence and prosperity increase. There 
is good reason, indeed, to regret that it does not make more 
rapid progress in so favourable a soil, and that its cultivation is 
not proportionate to the advantages which this country affords, 
and the immunity from vulgar cares which a mature state of 
social refinement implies. But, in no other than this relative 
sense, can I admit science to have declined in England. What 
three names, if we except the name of Newton, can be shown 
in any one age of our scientific history which rank higher than 
those of men whose friendship w r e have enjoyed, by whose genius 
we have been warmed, and whose loss it has been our misfor¬ 
tune prematurely to deplore, the names of Davy, Wollaston, 
and Young! And there are men still remaining among us, in¬ 
dividuals whom I must not mention, present in this Meeting, and 
absent from this Meeting, whose names are no less consecrated 
to immortality than theirs. 
“ But it is not by counting the great luminaries who may 
chance to shine in this year, or that,—in a decade of years, or a 
generation of men,—that we are to inform ourselves of the state 
of national science. Let us look rather to the numbers engaged, 
effectually, though less conspicuously, in adding by degrees to 
our knowledge of nature; let us look to the increase of scientific 
