sixth was killed by alcohol. You have learned how our hospitals for the insane are filled and how men are led to violence from Dr. Speyr's lecture, and you recall scenes of coarseness you have yourselves seen as the result of alcohol. You will see that a chain of coarseness is drawn about our whole life, which binds us fast on a plane of barbarity and wretchedness. Follow this chain even to yourselves. It is wound about you. . . . That here one dies of delirium tremens, there one loses his senses through alcohol, there a deed of violence is done, here a brutality perpetrated—these are all manifestations of a single great phenomenon, the bondage of mankind to a plane of rudeness in which they deaden and make useless the most precious instrument which is given them for their development; and you are sharers in the guilt so long as you do not break this chain, so long as you do not have courage to adjust your life-compass with reference to the future instead of the past.
This is the joy of the one who does not drink—the feeling of freedom from responsibility for misery, the joy of hope for the future of mankind, the increased sensitiveness to the beauty of the world; and on us, the chosen people, rest the hopes of the world for the future. We must be leaders.
| UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE.[1] |
By the Most Hon. the MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, K. G., D. C. L., F. R. S.
CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
MY functions are of a more complicated character than usually is assigned to the occupants of this chair. As Chancellor of the University it is my duty to tender to the British Association a hearty welcome, which it is my duty as President of the Association to accept. As President of the Association I convey, most unworthily, the voice of English science, as many worthy and illustrious presidents have done before me; but in representing the university I represent far more fittingly the learners who are longing to hear the lessons which the first teachers of English science have come as visitors to teach. I am bound to express on behalf of the university our sense of the good feeling toward that body which is the motive of this unusual arrangement; but, as far as I am personally concerned, it is attended with some embarrassing results. In presence of the high priests of science I am only a layman, and all the skill of
- ↑ Inaugural Address of the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
