In welcoming you once again as your Honorary President, at the beginning of another Session, I would fain that it were allowed me merely to refer you back to one or other of the Opening Addresses of past years—the classics of your Society—which tell, many of them in terms much more eloquent than I could hope to do, what lines the Actuary had better follow in setting out on his professional career, and what goal he should steer for once he is fairly started on it.

But, as the old order changes yielding place to new, each year brings round with it some altered phase of thought, turns up to the surface some fresh and suggestive idea, and in so doing compels one forcibly to remember—notwithstanding there may be nothing altogether new under the sun—that the world still moves on ever more rapidly with kaleidoscopic effect, bringing old developments within the field of view in some fresh and altered light. Wherefore I am in duty bound in my turn, if I can, within our own sphere of observation, to draw notice to the new forces that are there at work, and to indicate the direction to which our attention should be turned.