Address of Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, bart., president, on taking the chair, December 9, 1858.

  • Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address of Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, bart., president, on taking the chair, December 9, 1858. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    only refer to the volumes of the Philosophical Transactions, published since the beginning of this century, to be satisfied that the disposi- tion to communicate the higher class of investigations to the Royal Society is not less than formerly. It is, indeed, the interest of every one who is ambitious that his name as a discoverer should be trans- mitted to posterity, that his works should have a place in the Philo- sophical Transactions, where, as has been observed by a writer in the Edinburgh Review, “ He has the benefit of the great name acquired by that distinguished body, by the labours of Newton and Halley and Cavendish, and hy two centuries of constant services performed to the commonwealth of letters*.” With the exception of the achievements of those small communities of ancient Greece, to whose works we still refer as affording the highest standard of excellence in literature and the fine arts, and from whom has been transmitted to us that marvellous science of geometry which enabled Newton to unravel the system of the universe,—with this exception, there is nothing in the history of what belongs to the advancement of knowledge so remarkable as the progress which the European nations have made in the cultivation of the physical sciences during the last two hundred years. It is not only those who are engaged, as you are, in researches of this kind, that must contemplate with satisfaction the results of this movement. The moral philosopher, recognizing in the desire of knowledge one of the noblest of our aspirations, will regard the extension of that de- sire, and the more general diffusion of knowledge, as an important means of elevating our species in the scale of intellectual beings. The unprejudiced theologian will allow that there is no better foun- dation for the religious sentiment than the study of natural pheno- mena, opening as it does to our view everywhere examples of design, and of the adaptation of means to ends, combined with mighty power and benevolent intention. The philosophical statesman, who, con- templating the progress of society, endeavours to explain the changes which it has undergone, and thence to anticipate the future, cannot fail to perceive that the cultivation of the physical sciences has been in these later times one of the most important instruments of civilization; while the mere utilitarian, however little he may be capable of esti- mating knowledge for its own sake, must admit that it has contri- * Edinburgh Review, 1811.
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