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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    delight beyond what he had before experienced, though he had thought before that his cup of joy was full—{loud cheers). He would not insult them by sup- posing them ignorant of the labours of this Christian philosopher. With an energy and commanding eloquence, belonging to him alone, enabhng him to bear before him the learned and the great—with a consciousness of powers which would have made most men prize the noisy world too much, he had never for a moment shut his ears to the whisperings of humanity. If his voice had been heard in the halls of philosophy, or amongst the assembled multitudes of the capital, it had been when he was pleading for the moral good of man, and above all, for the good of the humbler classes of society. With this feeling he had sought out the haunts of misery and of crime, and had done his best to drive off the moral plague with which the social fabric had been tainted. In this way had he gone on, toiling not for his own glory, but for the good of his fellow-men, and approving himself a faithful servant of his Lord and Master. But for a topic like this, he (the President) had no longer any strength, nor should he dare to trust himself any farther with it; he should therefore sit down after giving, The Universities of Scotland, and with them the health of the distinguished men (two of whom he was delighted to see near him). Dr Chalmers, Sir David Brewster, and Professor Forbes. Dr Chalmers, in rising to return thanks, assured them most honestly, that as an humble individual from a distant part of the country he did not expect to be so signalized—they had taken him by surprise, and he was not prepared to give an adequate expression to his feelings; but their kindness had awakened in his heart the most lively sentiments of gratitude. He begged leave to return them his thanks in the name of the Universities of Scotland, and more especially of Edinburgh, to which he had the honour to belong. He was sure he only did justice to the feelings of his countrymen, when he expressed his confidence that the British Asso- ciation would meet with a cordial welcome in Edinburgh. They could not pre- tend to rival the English Universities in the magnificence and number of their buildings, although they possessed enough to provide for the business and meet the objects of the Association. But though they could not promise the same ample and various accommodation which they had enjoyed in Cambridge and Oxford, they would do their best to endeavour to make up for the want of these by a hearty good will and by endeavouring to equal them, for to exceed them was im- possible, in the warmth of their Scottish hospitality. He never addressed an assembly of Englishmen without being weighed down by the excessive conscious- ness of his provincial dialect, and if he could only obtain the conviction that he was but tolerable, or even that he was intelligible, or at most that he was sure of the same indulgence which an Englishman would extend to a Dutchman, he would go on—but he would not now trespass on the patience of the Meeting beyond the space of a few minutes. During a long interval of twenty-four years he had been separated from the study of the natural sciences, and had been exclusively con- nected with men of another class; but he was sure there was no class of men who looked upon the progress of philosophy and the prosperity of this Society with greater kindness than the enlightened Christians of Edinburgh. In the spirit of that