Page:Popular Astronomy - Airy - 1881.djvu/15



EFORE entering upon the subject of my proposed course of Lectures, it may perhaps be desirable that I should state, in as brief terms as possible, the views which have induced me to deliver them to the members of this Institution. When it was intimated to me that the offer of the course would be desirable, and when I felt that my compliance would show my good will to the Museum, I could not help thinking in the first place, that I should be in some slight degree departing from the intentions and objects of the Institution, though in the next place, I was certainly inclined to the opinion that such departure would be more imaginary than real. I thought that lectures on Natural Philosophy would seem to be hardly proper in an Institution intended for Natural History; but still I was convinced that their subjects were so closely connected, that the habits of thought which they induced, and the mode of treating them, were so similar in many respects, that what applied to the 4em