THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 179 
Physics, or the science of motion in its widest and largest signifi- 
cance. I have given you this sketch of an eminent authority’s view 
of the office of Mathematics in giving finish to exact science, 
because it is in more ways than one important, that the subject 
should be borne in mind by all who are interested in the progress 
of scientific thought and opinion. Much passes under the weighty 
name of Science, which at best is nothing more than opinion more 
or less probable. And this brings m3 back to the apprehension I 
expressed, at the beginning of this address, that our scientific in- 
vestigations are not seldom restless, rather than active, fanciful 
rather than certain—impatient to draw out desired results, and to 
clinch preconceptions, rather than contented to search and store facts, 
and quietly to await the conclusions, which by correct inductive pro- 
cess may truly be extracted from the evidence. With nota shred of 
prejudice (if I do not misunderstand myself), but rather with a 
sincere admiration, influenced by my high estimate of him as a 
brilliant expounder, both by experiment and exposition, of physical 
science in some of its highest phases, I could not but partake of 
the unfavourable estimate so largely formed of Professor Tyndall’s 
celebrated address at Belfast the other day. I censure him, not 
from any theological bias of my own, or from any idea that his 
religious opinions are other than I would have a Christian’s be. Of 
this, I think, his address affords no decisive evidence one way or 
the other; and most certainly his position at the head of the British 
Association was no place for any reference to any subject of such a 
nature. The occasion was scientific ; the object which he had to 
direct was scientific ; the whole domain of ascertained sctence was at 
his command, and his audience was scientific, through and through. 
But yet his address was not scientific ; it seemed to be worse than 
not scientific, for it was a perversion of science. Exquisite in style, 
as all his writings are apt to be, his address was indeed most pleasant 
reading—if its purport had been a mythological or poetic rhapsody ; 
or a day-dream visioning forth the possible future of an all-embracing 
Molecular theory, in which Mind and Body are to arrive at the 
vanishing point, not of union or correlation, but of identity ; and 
all physical conditions are to be resolved into physiological develop- 
ment. But there is much to be done before such a possibility can 
even be thought of, except by those, whose prejudices are strong 
enough to throw down the barriers of true scientific examination, 
and to jump over all legitimate requirements of logical method to 
