FIFTH REPORT— 1835 . 
1 • • • 
Xivill 
operation. Express requests also are systematically made to indivi¬ 
duals and bodies of men, to cooperate in the execution of particular 
tasks in science, and these requests have often been complied with. 
But more perhaps than all the rest, the reports which it has called forth 
on the existing state of the several branches of knowledge are astonish¬ 
ing examples of industry and zeal exerted in the spirit and for the pur¬ 
pose of cooperation. No other society, I believe, has yet ventured to 
call on any of its members for any such report, and indeed it would be 
a difficult, perhaps an invidious thing, for any one of the other socie¬ 
ties or academies so to do. For such a report should contain a large 
and comprehensive view of the treasures of all the academies ; and 
would it not be difficult for a zealous member of any one of them, un¬ 
dertaking the task at the request of his own body, to form and to ex¬ 
press that view with all the impartiality requisite ? Would there not be 
some danger of a bias, in some things to palliate the defects of his own 
particular society, and in other things to exalt beyond what was strictly 
just, its true and genuine merits ? But a body like the British Asso¬ 
ciation which receives indeed all communications, but publishes (ex¬ 
cept by abstract) none, save only those very reports which it had pre¬ 
viously and specially called for,—a body such as this, and governed by 
such regulations, may hope, that standing in one common relation to all 
the existing academies, and not belonging to the same great class of 
societies publishing papers, the members whom it has selected for the 
task may come before it to report what has resulted from the labours 
of all those different societies, without any excessive depression or any 
undue exultation, and in a more unbiassed mood of mind than would 
be possible under other circumstances. Accordingly the reports already 
presented by those eminent men who were selected for the office, (and 
rightly so selected, because a comprehensive mind was not less needed 
than industry,) appear to have been drawn up with as much impar¬ 
tiality as diligence ; they comprise a very extensive and perfect view 
of the existing state of science in most of its great departments : and 
if in any case they do not quite bring down the history of science to 
this day (as certainly they go near to do), they furnish some of the best 
and most authentic materials to the future writer of such history. But 
we should not only underrate the value of those reports, but even quite 
mistake the character of that value if we were to refer it all to its con¬ 
nexion with distant researches, and some unborn generation. They 
will, indeed, assist the future historian of science ; but it was not solely, 
nor even chiefly for that purpose they were designed, nor is it solely 
or chiefly for that purpose which they will answer. They belong 
to our own age ; they are the property of ourselves as well as of our 
