Lithographed signatures of the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, who met at Cambridge, June 1833, with a report of the proceedings at the public meetings during the week and an alphabetical list of the members.

  • British Association for the Advancement of Science. Meeting.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lithographed signatures of the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, who met at Cambridge, June 1833, with a report of the proceedings at the public meetings during the week and an alphabetical list of the members. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The President rose and said, he should be utterly unworthy of the kindness he had experienced, could he listen with a soul unmoved to such sentiments as had been expressed by his noble friend, or could he receive such gratulations from the assembled Association, without being overcome by them. He could only say he felt all he ought to feel, and he would leave the Meeting to judge what those feelings were. Before he went on to other subjects connected with the occasion —the last occasion of addressing them in that room—he would call their attention to one topic to which he attached great importance, especially after the discussions that morning. He wished that he had entered on the topic earlier in the week, when he could perhaps have done so with more calmness: he wished to speak of the constitution of this Association, and to recommend, to the utmost of his power, a rigid adherence to its principles. They were organized under a President, whose duty it was to occupy the chair he now filled—he would not say unworthily, because they had said the contrary. They had also a General Committee for carrying on the business of the Annual Meetings; and in the intervals between their annual meetings, they had a central Council, which might be in some measure regarded as their executive body. The composition of their General Committee was a matter of most vital importance to the honour and to the very existence of the Association. In what way, then, was it composed ? Every author of a Memoir published in the Transactions of any Philosophical Society of the Empire claimed his seat in the Committee as a matter of right. Their patent of nobility was the proof of personal service; and if the noble Marquis who had just sat down, had a seat in their council chamber, it was only because he had reaped laurels with his own arm in the field of science. Nor was this all. Each provincial Philosophical Society (and how many there now were he need not tell them) had the right of sending two Delegates, who took their seat in the Committee as the representatives of their respective bodies: and it must be obvious that such Delegates would be, in general, not merely men of science, but men of business-like habits. He could not conceive a better constituted body for governing the Association. Each member had a personal interest, not only in the well-being of the Association; but, what was of far more importance, in keeping it to the precise work for which it was first organized. While under such government, it was impossible it should receive an impulse in one direction rather than another, so as to be forced out of the track in which it was now so honourably advancing. They were held erect by many balances—they were secured from falling by many antagonist forces—they had an enduring principle of action—their General Committee was their fly-wheel, or rather their main-spring, to keep the great intellectual machine in its proper movement. All their work was in strict subordination; and it was one of their highest duties to be subordinate. The General Committee was their governing body; and while its organization continued what it was, it was entitled to their utmost confidence. That confidence had been most honourably given; and, as a natural consequence, the business of the Association was going on, not merely in the right direction, but under the impulse of an active and commanding spirit. In order to carry on the work of the Annual Meetings, the first business of the General Committee was to complete the organization of the Sections. Each D 2