INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
AT THE OPENING OF THE SESSION 1874-5. 
BY THE REV. P. HOLMES, D.D., F.R.A.S., 
President. 
Mr. Vicr-PrestpENt, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN, 
§ I. I called attention when I had the honour of opening 
our last year’s session to the unifying tendency of contemporary 
Science. Generally speaking, this is still true; and I do not know 
that I need recall or even modify the statement which I then made. 
But I descry some danger to progress in what may be called the 
struggles of Science in the ruce after Philosophy, wherein conclusions 
outrun premises, and theories are mistaken for facts. From the 
earliest times the human mind has felt a strong desire to fathom 
the laws which govern the various phenomena of Nature, and to 
make itself master of her forces. Too long, however, did men 
wander in this eager and often dangerous pursuit of truth. 
Beginning with fanciful interpretations, they by degrees substituted 
hypothesis for fable ; and then, at last coming to understand the 
true method—(experimental observation), they have been able, after 
innumerable efforts, to give in permanent formule the most general 
idea of the principal phenomena of the physical world. We here 
see the steps up which the human mind has ascended—the primi- 
tive fable or myth, the hypothetic guess, the objective fact of Science. 
Now I am not so rash as to fear, that we are going back to 
myths and fables, with an absolute surrender of our intelligence ; 
but it is a curious fact that we hear unusually much of the old 
mythic thinkers of Greece and Rome—of Democritus, and Epicurus, 
and Lucretius ; and that, too, in the very highest places of scien- 
tific authority. 
We are thus curiously and unexpectedly brought face to face 
with ancient mythic thought: I avail myself of my opportunity, 
M 
