The highest speed just named— 37 '77
feet — is about as much as one can
stand against in the confined space
of a flue. — James Macttar^ PhUoso-
phical Society, Glasgow,



04



THE YEAE-BOOK OF PACTS.
PHYSICAL SCIENCES.
Britiflh AMOciation.
Belfast Meeting, August 19, 1874.
Inaugural address of the President, John Tyndall, F.R.S., D.O.L. Oxon.,
LL.D. Cantab., F.C.P.S., Professor of Natural Plulosophy in the
Royal Institution.
(Ahstract).
An impulse inherent in primeval
man turned his thoughts and ques-
tionings towards the sources of na-
tural phenomena. The same impulse
is the spur of scientitic action to-day.
By a process of abstraction, from ex-
perience we form physical theories
which lie beyond the pale of expe-
rience. In forming their notions of
the origin of things, our earliest an-
cestors pursued the same course.
They fell back upon experience, but
with this difference — that the parti-
cular experiences which furnished
their theories were drawn, not from
the study of Nature, but from the
observation of men. Their theories
accordingly took an anthropomorphic
form. To supersensual beings were
handed over the rule and governance
of natural phenomena.
