ADDRESS OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON. xlvil 
corporate responsibility, cannot fail to be accounted a high and honour¬ 
able reward ; and one, of which the hope must much assist to cheer 
and support the author in his toils, by virtue of the principle of sym¬ 
pathy. It is known, and (I believe) was mentioned in an address to 
this Association, at one of the former meetings, that the Principia and 
Optics of Newton were published at the request of the Royal Society 
of London. Newton, indeed, might well have thought that those 
works did not need that sanction, if the meekness of his high faculties 
had permitted him to judge of himself as all other men have judged of 
him ; but our gratitude is not therefore due the less to the Society 
whose request prevailed over his own modest reluctance, and procured 
those treasures for that and for every age. It must be added that the 
Royal and Astronomical Societies print abstracts of their communica¬ 
tions, for speedy circulation among their members, which is a useful 
addition to the service done m publishing the papers themselves, and 
is an example well worthy of being followed by all similar institutions ; 
and that the Royal Society has even gone so far as to procure and 
print, in at least one recent instance (I mean in the case of a paper of 
Mr. Lubbock’s), and perhaps also in some other instances, a report 
from some of its members, on a memoir presented by another, thus 
imitating an excellent practice of the Institute of France, which has 
probably contributed much to the high state of science in that country. 
This last procedure, and doubtless other acts of some other scientific 
societies, such as the discussions in the Geological Society, the lending 
of instruments by the Astronomical Society to its members, and the 
occasional exhibition of models and experiments by members to the 
body, in the Irish and other institutions, are examples of direct co¬ 
operation ; and perhaps there is nothing to prevent such cases being 
greatly multiplied hereafter. But admitting freely these and other 
claims of the several societies and academies of the empire to our gra¬ 
titude for their services to science, and accounting it a very valuable 
privilege to belong, as most of us do, to one or other of those bodies, 
and acknowledging that there is much work to be done which can only 
be done by them, we must still turn to this British Association, as the 
body which is cooperative by eminence.—The discussions in its sections 
are more animated, comprehensive and instructive, and make minds 
which were strangers, more intimately acquainted with each other, than 
can be supposed to be the case in any less general body; the general 
meetings bring together the cultivators of all different departments of 
science; and even the less formal conversations , which take place in its 
halls of assembly during every pause of business, are themselves the 
working together of mind with mind, and not only excite but are co- 
