Gentlemen, Although I have already had the opportunity of offering to you my thanks for the great honour which you have conferred on me in placing me in this Chair, it is but fit that I should repeat them now, when we are assembled in a more formal manner, and when probably some Fellows are present who were not present at the Anniversary dinner. It is impossible that I should be otherwise than highly gratified by such an expression of the good opinion of a Society, which may justly be regarded as including a larger proportion of individuals distinguished for their knowledge and intelligence than any other in this country. At the same time I must own that my feelings on the occasion are somewhat modified when I see around me so many of our Fellows who have devoted their lives to scientific pursuits, and who in their respective departments have contributed so much more than I have done to the advancement of scientific knowledge. It is now long since the requirements of an arduous profession, and the public not less than the private duties belonging to it, compelled me to direct my attention to other objects, and in a great degree to relinquish those researches, to which during many previous years l had been able to devote a large portion of my time, and which were to me the chief objects of interest during the early period of my life. Still, although I have ceased, except to a limited extent, to be a labourer in that field of science in which I laboured formerly, I have never failed to sympathize with those who in this respect were more happily situated, and to regard with satisfaction, or I ought rather to say with admiration, the grand results at which they have arrived in extending the boundaries of human knowledge. If it were possible for any one of that small but illustrious band of philosophers,—who just two centuries ago were associated in Gresham College for the purpose of mutually communicating and receiving knowledge, and who there laid the foundation of the Society which is now assembled—to revisit the scene of his former labours, we may well conceive the delight which it would afford him to learn that the success of that noble enterprise had been so much greater than his most sanguine aspirations could have led him to anticipate. Not only would he find an ample development of sciences which were then in the embryo state of their existence, but he wrould find other sciences, not inferior to these in interest and importance, added to the list. He would find that, instead of a limited number of individuals who were then occupied with scientific inquiries, whose labours were held in little estimation by the general public, and even held to be objects of ridicule by the presumptuous and ignorant, there is now a large number devoted to the same pursuits, and successfully applying to them the highest powers of the human intellect. He would perceive that, instead of being confined as it were to a corner, the love of knowledge is gradually becoming extended throughout the length and breadth of the land; and that, of those whose position does not afford them the opportunity of penetrating to the inmost recesses of the temple of science, there are many who, having advanced as far as the vestibule, are enabled even there to obtain their reward, in the improvement of their own minds, and in being rendered more useful members of the community.
�Oedipus the King� by Sophocles in the Immanent Interpretation of Emil Staiger
