When asked to lecture for your Society, I felt, for a short time, a difficulty in hitting upon a topic which, while in itself interesting and important, should at the same time admit of being handled with any profit in an hour's address. Many of you may perhaps have smiled when you saw so vast a subject put down on your programme as that which I eventually selected; and, if so, I must feel that the smile was justified. Yet, even in so short a time, I hope that I may be able, not, of course, to exhaust the subject, or even to do it moderate justice, but to indicate one or two points of view from which it may be considered in its most general bearings.

I do not propose to touch on any question of detail such as the title of this lecture might seem naturally to suggest—such as, for instance, how far it is possible for one man to combine the studies of natural science and literature, or how far literary style and handling is necessary to the proper exposition of scientific problems, or whether the influence of natural science upon literature, either in regard to the views of life which it has suggested, or in regard to literary style and execution, is, on the whole, a healthy one; or whether methods borrowed from natural science can be applied to the historical sciences.