I make no apology for having thus touched on international coöperation. I should have been wanting had I not done so on the memorable occasion of this meeting. A hundred years ago two great nations were grappling with each other in a fierce struggle, which had lasted, with pauses, for many years, and which was to last for many years to come; war was on every lip and in almost every heart. To-day this meeting has, by a common wish, been so arranged that those two nations should, in the persons of their men of science, draw as near together as they can, with nothing but the narrow streak of the Channel between them, in order that they may take counsel together on matters in which they have one interest and a common hope. May we not look upon this brotherly meeting as one of many signs that science, though she works in a silent manner and in ways unseen by many, is steadily making for peace? Looking back, then, in this last year of the eighteen hundreds, on the century which is drawing to a close, while we may see in the history of scientific inquiry much which, telling the man of science of his shortcomings and his weakness, bids him be humble, we also see much, perhaps more, which gives him hope. Hope is, indeed, one of the watchwords of science. In the latter-day writings of some who know not science much may be read which shows that the writer is losing, or has lost, hope in the future of mankind. There are not a few of these; their repeated utterances make a sign of the times. Seeing in matters lying outside science few marks of progress and many tokens of decline or decay, recognizing in science its material benefits only, such men have thoughts of despair when they look forward to the times to come. But if there be any truth in what I have attempted to urge to-night, if the intellectual, if the moral influences of science are no less marked than her material benefits, if, moreover, that which she has done is but the earnest of that which she shall do, such men may pluck up courage and gather strength by laying hold of her garment.