e not favoured with their presence?

These observations on the literary wealth of our native country, and the
progressive developement of our institution, lead us naturally to
the obstructions which will arise from the increasing number of our
fellow-labourers, The chief object of this assembly does not consist,
as in other societies whose sphere is more limited, in the mutual
interchange of treatises, or in innumerable memoirs, destined to be
printed in some general collection. The principal object of this Society
is, to bring those personally together who are engaged in the same field
of science. It is the immediate, and therefore more obvious interchange
of ideas, whether they present themselves as facts, opinions, or
doubts. It is the foundation of friendly connexion which throws light
on science, adds cheerfulness to life, and gives patience and amenity to
the manners.

In the most flourishing period of ancient Greece, the distinction
between words and writing first manifested itself most strongly amongst
a race, which had raised itself to the most splendid intellectual
superiority, and to whose latest descendants, as preserved from the
shipwreck of nations, we still consecrate our most anxious wishes. It
was not the difficulty of interchange of ideas alone, nor the want of
German science, which has spread thought as on wings through the world,
and insured it a long continuance, that then induced the friends of
philosophy and natural history in Magna Graecia and Asia Minor to wander
on long journeys. That ancient race knew the inspiring influence of
conversation as it extemporaneously, freely, and prudently penetrates
the tissue of scientific opinions and doubts. The discovery of the truth
without difference of opinion is unattainable, because the truth, in its
greatest extent, can never be recognized by all, and at the same time.
Each step, which seems to bring the explorer of nature nearer to his
object, only carries him to the threshold of new labyrinths. The mass of
doubt does not diminish, but spreads like a moving cloud over other and
new fields; and whoever has called that a golden period, when difference
of opinions, or, as some are accustomed to express it, the disputes
of the learned, will be finished, has as imperfect a conception of the
wants of science, and of its continued advancement, as a person who
expects that the same opinions in geognosy, chemistry, or physiology,
will be maintained for several