PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
261 
place on the same plan as heretofore, the first, for the show of spring flowers, being 
held in April, and the second on the 24th of May, the day upon which it is pur¬ 
posed to open the Gardens. The arrangements for these exhibitions, under the 
auspices and direction of the Zoological and Botanical Society, are expected soon 
to be completed, and we doubt not they will prove such as will ensure increased 
eclat for all the flower-shows of future years.— Cheltenham Looker-On , Feh. 10, 
1838. 
CHELTENHAM LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION. 
The following reports are extracted from various numbers of the Cheltenham 
Looker-On. 
The weekly meetings of this Institution were resumed on January 30, when 
Dr. Theodore Boisragon delivered a lecture on Meteorology before a numerous 
and highly respectable audience, consisting of the members of the Society and 
their friends. The learned gentleman commenced his discourse by an elaborate 
introduction, in which the objects proposed by Literary and Philosophical Insti¬ 
tutions were described to be “ the bringing before the public subjects in science 
and arts generally, so as to lead the mind to recognize, through all the media of 
science, those principles pervading and connecting phenomena very little related 
to each other, yet constituting the chain which links all Nature.’’ In exemplifi¬ 
cation of this, Meteorology was referred to, and its principles briefly stated. The 
precise import of the terms principle , philosophy, and wisdom was inquired into, 
and illustrated by reference to the relations subsisting between the facts incident 
to the various phenomena of Meteorology; the effects produced by heat on 
confined air being selected as an example. The nature of a philosophical truth 
was explained in its connection with the Fine Arts, Science, Morals, and Religion ; 
adverting to its connection with the last, the lecturer remarked :— 
“ Even religion itself, and of course the adoption of the best form of it, may 
according to this view be said to be a proof of sound philosophy in the person 
embracing it, when founded according to the truth of the relations on which its 
evidence is based; and that form of it of course which, in its adaptation both to 
the infirm nature of the dependant, though immortal, being for whom it was 
designed; and the glorious object it was intended to fulfil, is the truest, and thus 
the most philosophical. In short, examples in philosophy are almost innumerable 
in every relation of life ;—in fact, wherever the term relation can be admitted, 
and we have to frame our conduct by reason , we may be said to be philosophi¬ 
cally engaged. But true philosophical training of the mind has also this one 
great advantage. It is the part of a true philosopher to see how finite the 
human mind shows itself in relation to the wonderful mysteries of creation, and 
this reflection has a most beneficial influence upon his judgment in cases where 
2 N 
VOL. III.—NO. XX. 
