88 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
Whether, not having coal or iron, which are said to be the sources 
of our material wealth, we have anything which some may reckon 
as still more valuable to a nation — intellectual fertility. If the 
members of this institution are representative of the intellectual 
condition of Plymouth; and if Plymouth, as she undoubtedly is, 
is the Queen of the western cities, a great responsibility rests 
upon us ; and this institution requires at our hands all the care, 
all the attention, and all the energy, that each and all of us can 
bestow, in order that it may maintain its position as a school of 
learning. Referring again to my first analogy, "We are called upon 
to hold our own in the struggle for life. And having, I presume, 
as an institution, in common with all Nature, an intuitive love of 
life, we cannot neglect to use every effort of which we are capable 
to support ourselves in the same energetic state of existence that 
has enabled us so successfully to resist the assaults of time for the 
last fifty- eight years. 
It would seem, then, that it is essential for us to be fully alive 
to the phenomena which manifest themselves as the intellectual 
progress of the world proceeds, and to be careful that in this 
institution they should be correctly reflected. We have little hope 
of being in advance of our time : that proud position is reserved 
for individual thinkers, chiefly in the great centres of intelligence 
and activity of mind. Our care must be not to lag behind our age, 
and not to cling to old habits of thought which have been thrown 
off by the intellectual leaders of the day. 
I am not alluding to any particular class of thinkers for which I 
myself may have a preference. I am not attempting to form any 
judgment, or to invite you to form any judgment, as to the relative 
state of progress of any school of thought compared with others. 
The progress of the human mind, at least in the civilized world, is 
universal. The same mental phenomena may, and doubtless do, 
characterize the tone of thought in all the different walks of pro- 
gressive intellect. In order that this institution may maintain its 
position in its sphere of utility, I invite you to observe the nature 
of the growth of opinion from time to time, to remark the steps 
which the march of intellect takes, and the direction in which it 
moves. The same character may be expected to pervade the 
development of ideas in all the numerous divisions into which our 
inquiries are classified. Wc have among our members those who 
devote themselves to the study of the various branches of know- 
