THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
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of truth that was prior to, that underlaid, was beyond and indepen- 
dent of, the most keen and unrelenting physical research — a region 
out of which Science itself sprang, a sphere of the very mental 
acts and principles without which Science could never be ; a large 
class of phenomena, with their corresponding noumenal reality, 
which coexist side by side with the physical, yet separated by a 
difference "transcending all difference. " The dream of possibly 
setting aside a distinction so apparently solid and rational grew in 
vividness, in consequence of special researches into the constitution 
of all forms of matter having brought the enquirer to a point where 
the analyzed material became so utterly attenuated as to seem to 
vanish into an intangible, invisible something, the qualities of 
which, if such there were, could not be traced. This circumstance, 
coupled with a careful observation of physiological facts connected 
with the action of the brain and the development of consciousness, 
seemed to give an air of plausibility to the belief that, if only the 
methods of physical research be patiently pursued for a while, they 
will be found adequate at last to solve the whole question of exist- 
ence, and, by obliterating the line which hitherto has been sup- 
posed to separate such utterly dissimilar phenomena as are included 
under the terms Matter and Mind, reveal an essential all-embracing 
unity of Nature. This dream, under the influence of a certain 
aspect of Positivism, has become with many a creed — not, be it 
observed, a demonstrated scientific fact. Having respect then to 
the enormous difference of tone and tendency that must ensue when 
a creed is allowed to supplement and practically widen the scope of 
a physical method of research, it will not be difficult to distinguish 
this form of the modern Scientific Spirit from that which I have 
ventured to term legitimate. 
The history of scientific and philosophic opinion does not justify 
us in supposing that every new and aggressive form of belief, 
bearing, because aggressive, the name "advanced," is on that account 
destined to be permanent. Those of us who have long traversed 
this pathway of history have often had occasion to note how it is 
strewn with wrecks of what, in their own day and to the eye of 
ardent adherents, bore the aspect of seemly schools of thought. If 
then, for the sake of distinction, I speak of an * 4 advanced" school 
that is characterized by a spirit more thoroughgoing than that of the 
truly Scientific, it is not to be assumed that it is really more ad- 
vanced in its approach to the truth than is its more cautious, but 
