Abstract
AT the meeting of the Mathematical Society on November 9, Prof. H. J. S. Smith gave an address on this subject, in which he excluded all reference to applied mathematics. “I shall regard it,” he said, “as a fortunate circumstance if my successor when he, in his turn, is looking round for a subject for his own presidential address, should be attracted by a domain on which I must myself decline to enter, but of which he, better perhaps than anyone among us, is fitted to give us a clear and comprehensive view.” He professed to offer only fragmentary remarks, “hoping that even such fragmentary remarks may not be without their use if they serve to remind us of the vastness of our science, and yet of its unity; of its unceasing development, rapid at the present time, promising to be still more rapid in the immediate future, and yet deriving strength and vitality from roots which strike far back into the past, so that the organic continuity of its gigantic growth has been preserved throughout. In every science there is a time and place for general contemplations, as well as time for minute investigations. And it is a rule of sound philosophy that neither of these shall be neglected in its proper season (‘itaque alter-nandae sunt istae contemplationes’ says Lord Bacon, ‘et vicissim sumendæ ut intellectus reddatur simul penetrans et capax’).”
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The Present State of Mathematical Science . Nature 15, 79–80 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/015079b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/015079b0