248 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
and varied means of affording instruction to young and old, and for 
creating and cherishing an interest in the higher departments of 
knowledge. It will not be for lack of opportunities if the more 
educated and aspiring of our population do not obtain wider views 
of truth, and become more fitted to fill their places as members of a 
community that knows how to blend the cultivation of the mind 
with an efficient discharge of the ordinary duties of life. 
But amidst the varied agencies rising and nourishing around us 
for the extension of knowledge and the development of the mental 
powers, I think it may be truly said that the place and function 
of the Plymouth Institution are as necessary and useful as ever. 
It is certainly desirable that, apart from professional assemblies in 
which the sciences of medicine and of jurisprudence are discussed 
from a professional point of view, there should be still a Hall 
wherein men of every profession may meet for the consideration of 
scientific questions from a purely scientific point of view, and where 
original investigations in Science and in Literature may meet with 
encouragement. I trust that, in years to come, we who are pledged 
by our membership to do our best to promote Science, Literature, 
and Art, may be able to maintain that standard of tone and 
material in our lectures and discussions which alone can justify 
our continued existence as an Institution. Called, as I have been, 
by your suffrages once more to occupy the honourable position of 
President, I feel that I can best repay your kind consideration by 
doing all that lies within my power, during this session, and in 
future sessions also, to render our meetings more and more worthy 
ourselves, and more conducive to the high purpose for which Ave 
as an Institution exist. 
It has been usual for your President, at the opening of the 
session, to deliver an address on some topic supposed to be of 
interest to the audience, and in some degree consonant with the 
scientific or literary character we are here expected to sustain. 
It has appeared to me that, among the many subjects which on 
reflection rose before my mind, it might be useful, and would 
certainly be in keeping with much of our current thought, if I 
ventured to devote the brief space at our disposal to a statement, 
partly historical and partly critical in the judicial sense, of a 
question which is very important, and which has excited, and 
is bound in the future to excite, much scientific and also popular 
interest; I mean the Emergence of Life and Consciousness. I 
