Address at the close of the Thirty-sixth Session of the Society

Abstract

In addressing this Society, as I do for the first time, I feel myself weighted with a double difficulty. For not only am I deeply conscious of the honour done me by election to the chair which I occupy, but I am painfully conscious that, as regards ability, knowledge, and experience, I should appear rather, as becomes one of the Society's youngest members, in the humble capacity of a pupil. There may be those, perhaps even countrymen of our own, who on the night of taking their seats in a National Assembly, would undertake with a light heart the government of an empire. If no shred of their mantle has fallen upon me, and I lack that happy confidence which is often the best earnest of success, it may be a consolation to you to reflect that in this calm atmosphere even the utterances of its president can hardly imperil the interests of your Society; and that if I do any harm it will be to myself alone.