evil, in leading us to read for a purpose, to adopt method and order in our literary recreations, to select some subject for study and illustration, and endeavour to master at least its general principles, and thus contribute some little aid towards the general advancement. The difference between desultory reading and study is enormous. The one is like the inspection of a shifting panorama, which leaves on the mind a pleasing, but indefinite and shadowy sense. The other is like digging in a mine, where every stroke yields a return in treasure, amassed for future use.

I have alluded to the steady advance of [physical science, and man's mastery over the elements. In mental science, meaning by that the study of our own minds and faculties, the same cannot be said. Here little, if any, progress can be shown to have been made. Political economy, which holds a middle place between physical and mental science, treating, as it does, of man's motives and habits, as developed by the pressure of his wants and interests, has become better understood; but, as a science, it is still far from perfect, and from its principles being established on an incontrovertible basis. Social science, which treats of man in his character of a domestic and social being, and of all that relates to his welfare as a member of society, has made considerable progress of late years, and has been the originating cause of many needful reforms. Pure mental science, however, still remains much as it has always been from the dawn of Greek philosophy. The reason is obvious. In all physical sciences the achievements of one age become the starting point of the next, and thus progress may be carried forward with an accelerated ratio; but in mental science, every age, every student must start from the depths of his own consciousness, and the writings and experience of former ages can only be of use as leading lines, which our own thoughts may traverse to form their own conclusions.

I must now bring to a close these desultory observations. My object has been, however imperfectly carried out, to indicate the position which this society may usefully occupy in the present condition of the scientific and literary world, and under the peculiar conditions which exist amongst ourselves. We have, I believe, a high and noble task to perform, in providing a means for soothing the asperities of daily life; in enabling us to forget for a time the anxieties of business, and the irritations of the counting house; in the cultivation of those faculties which God has given to us for nobler ends than the pursuit of business, however successfully, and the amassing of wealth, however enormous; in the diffusion within our respective circles of a taste for whatever is beautiful in nature and art; in calling attention to the wonders developed in the works of God around us; and, finally, in contributing to the elevation of the tone of the mental and moral atmosphere about us. If we keep these objects steadily in view, the Literary and Philosophical Society cannot be said to have existed in vain.

This address was listened to with great interest, and at its conclusion a vote of thanks was carried by acclamation, on the motion of the Rev. H. H. Higgins, seconded by the Rev. J. Robberds.

JAMES A. PICTON, F.S.A., PRESIDENT, in the Chai

Dr. COLLINGWOOD detailed some curious observations ma by Col. Stuart Wortley upon the habits of Prideaux's hermi crab and the Cloak Anemone (Adamsia.) These two an mals, it is well known, are always associated together, but a difficult to keep in the aquarium. Col. Wortley had, how ever, succeeded, and had observed the attachment the appeared to have for one another, and had seen the crab fee the anemone when his own hunger was appeased, and remov it to a new shell when he himself removed.

The Rev. Dr. GINSBURG having taken the chair, the following paper was read:

ON SANSKRIT ROOTS AND ENGLISH

DERIVATIONS.

By J. A. PICTON, Esq., F.S.A., PRESIDENT.

IN two papers previously read before this society, I have endeavoured to illustrate the identity of our own mother tongue, in all its essential elements, with the ancient Gothic, the earliest form of Teutonic speech handed down to us. I have also shown that the position which the Gothic language holds, presents great facilities for tracing the connexion of the Teutonic branch with the other great stems of the Aryan family of tongues, especially with the Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. It is my purpose in the present paper to continue the inquiry, by calling attention to a few instances of the radical connexion still to be traced, between the members of the family most widely separated both by time and space; the one from the extreme East, and preserving in its grammatical character the earliest forms,-the Sanskrit; and the other, occupying the most advanced post to the West, and in many respects of the most modern development-our own English tongue. A few years ago any attempt of this kind would have been simply impossible, but the patient labours of the modern school of philology have done much towards removing the difficulties, by investigating the laws of language in its permutations, and by establishing principles which may be relied on in inquries of this nature. Amongst these inquirers stands pre-eminent the name of Franz Bopp, the publication of whose Vergleichende Grammatik, the first part of which appeared in 1833, created an entirely new era in the science of Philology. Up to that time, etymology had been little

more than a series of guesses, frequently shrewd and acute, but based on no principle, and appealing to no general laws. Jacob Grimm, the commencement of whose Deutsche Grammatik was published in 1822, has exhausted the subject of the Teutonic languages in their co-relation and comparison, but to Bopp we owe the establishment of the laws of language on such sure and settled foundations, that future inquirers may tread firmly, and advance with confidence, where formerly every step was treacherous and uncertain. The labours of Bopp have been ably followed up by Professor F. Pott, of Halle, in his Etymologische Forschungen, (Lemgo, 1859,) and latterly in our own country by Max Müller, whose "Lectures on the Science of Language" have done much to draw the attention of the educated classes to the importance and value of philological studies, and the interest attaching to them. Hitherto, however, not much has been done towards tracing out the connexion of our own language with the earliest of its congeners. Bopp's Comparative Grammar has chiefly to do with principles, laid down in the most masterly way, but adapted only for scholars. Our own etymologists almost uniformly terminate their inquiries with the Anglo-Saxon, Latin and Greek. One of our latest writers, Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, whose Dictionary of English Etymology now in course of publication is most valuable, never attempts to go beyond the Gothic in his illustrations. The only English philologist, so far as my observation goes, who has drawn upon the Sanskrit for illustrations, is Mr. Oswald Cockayne, in his recent lively and interesting work entitled Spoon and Sparrow, and this only in a tentative and unsystematic manner. In Germany, in addition to the work of Professor Pott already alluded to, an elaborate volume was published at Vienna, in 1852, by Professor Holmboe, of Copenhagen, shewing the connexion of the Norse languages with the other Indo-European tongues,-illustrated by a large number of