Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/160

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
138
THE CROONIAN LECTURE.

freest inquiry had irrevocably fixed their claim to the character of indisputable facts. But, I will not press this subject further on my reader's attention, lest he should think I am myself delivering the lecture. All that I could have said on this point has been so much more ably stated by one whose enlightened view of geological science has taken away some difficulties from its cultivators, and, I hope, removed a stumbling-block from many respectable individuals, that I should only weaken by adding to the argument.[1]

Section 10.

Of the Croonian Lecture.

The payment[2] for this Lecture, like that of the preceding, is small. It was instituted by Dr. Croone, for an annual essay on the subject of Muscular Motion. It is a little to be regretted, that it should have been so restricted; and perhaps its founder, had he foreseen the

  1. I allude to the critique of Dr. Ure's Geology in the British Review, for July, 1829; an Essay, equally worthy of a philosopher and a Christian.
  2. Three pounds.