ific
perfection of the microscope, so now, more than ever, it is its
special function to place this in the forefront as its _raison
d'etre_. The microscope has been long enough in the hands of amateur
and expert alike to establish itself as an instrument having an
application to every actual and conceivable department of human
research; and while in the earliest days of this society it was
possible for a zealous Fellow to have seen, and been more or less
familiar with, all the applications to which it then had been put, it
is different to-day. Specialists in the most diverse areas of research
are assiduously applying the instrument to their various subjects, and
with results that, if we would estimate aright, we must survey with
instructed vision the whole ground which advancing science covers.

From this it is manifest that this society cannot hope to infold, or
at least to organically bind to itself, men whose objects of research
are so diverse.

But these are all none the less linked by one inseverable bond; it is
the microscope; and while, amid the inconceivable diversity of its
applications, it remains manifest that this society has for its
primary object the constant progress of the instrument--whether in its
mechanical construction or its optical appliances; whether the
improvements shall bear upon the use of high powers or low powers;
whether it shall be improvement that shall apply to its commercial
employment, its easier professional application, or its most exalted
scientific use; so long as this shall be the undoubted aim of the
Royal Microscopical Society, its existence may well be the pride of
Englishmen, and will commend itself more and more to men of all
countries.

This, and this only, can lift such a society out of what I believe has
ceased to be its danger, that of forgetting that in proportion as the
optical principles of the microscope are understood, and the theory of
microscopical vision is made plain, the value of the instrument over
every region to which it can be applied, and in all the varied hands
that use it, is increased without definable limit. It is therefore by
such means that the true interests of science are promoted.

It is one of the most admirable features of this society that it has
become cosmopolitan in its character in relation to the instrument,
and all the ever-improving methods of research employed with it. From
meeting to meeting it is not one country, or one continent