One solid advantage to be reaped, were that the only one, is that by the practice of original investigation, the intellect will become fertilized; and as by ploughing and harrowing the soil, new elements of vegetation and reproduction are brought to the surface, such exercises will imbue the mind with an elasticity and a capacity for analysis and induction, enlarged as occasion presents new objects with which it is called on to grapple.

This is by no means an unimportant consideration while the printing press is daily sending forth works written with the fascination of what is termed a popular style, introducing every species of scientific question, stripped of all severity of demonstration. When readers once acquire a habit of perusing such works hastily and without method, indiscriminately and without reflection or the necessity for mental exertion, they become prone to lean on the memory rather than to rely on the understanding, thereby underrating and necessarily impairing the higher powers of reason. Those who are satisfied with a medium so acceptable to the indolent may be displeased with what they may deem a depreciating allusion to such books. It is not my desire to undervalue, but to stamp a right value upon them. Many of them are of considerable merit, and the authors of them have distributed much useful instruction in quarters to which it had never before been able to penetrate; but in adverting to one of the chief aims of this Institute, "the elevation of the intellectual condition of the community." it is my wish to impress upon its members that this is not to be accomplished by adopting second-rate philosophy at second hand, but by enforcing the necessity for primary research; by creating a taste for independent and thoughtful observation; by gratifying the powers of perception while the attention is engaged and the curiosity gratified; by urging its members to strike out for themselves a track different from that which can only lead to mediocrity; by enlisting the active and strenuous, fostering in them a virorous and self-relying habit, and thus, by strengthening the strong, arousing the listless and inattentive; and having kindled such a spirit, usiing every means to make it to permeate through every grade.

Royal Society of Victoria