BRITISH ASSOCIATION 221 



the " Philosophical Club " for the use of the reformers, 

 in distinction to the older Royal Society Club. Both 

 were merely dining clubs that met on the evenings 

 of Royal Society meetings, and they were held on 

 alternate weeks. I, like many others, was a member 

 of both. The members of the Philosophical Club 

 were limited in number to forty-seven, as a reminder 

 of the date of its foundation. This controversy is 

 now quite obsolete, and the two clubs have become 

 amalgamated. 



Another very important reform that Sir William 

 Grove carried through on this occasion, was to limit 

 the number of elections to the Royal Society to fifteen 

 in each year, it having been found that fifteen 

 annual elections corresponded to the losses by death ; 

 so the average number of Fellows would thereby 

 remain unchanged. It was the firm opinion of Sir 

 William Grove, which I fully share, that the only 

 feasible way of keeping a standard of qualification 

 from being lowered is to limit the number of selected 

 candidates, for it is scarcely possible to define a 

 standard in words. The question has lately been 

 raised whether fifteen is not too small a number now. 

 On that point I have no up-to-date knowledge that 

 would justify an opinion, but when I served on the 

 Council of the Royal Society many years ago, and 

 the number of candidates averaged little more than 

 fifty, it happened that about twelve out of the fifteen 

 were elected at the first ballot, but there was often 

 considerable delay in fixing upon the remainder. So 

 it seemed that fifteen was a somewhat high number 

 then, but this year there were as many as a hundred 

 candidates. Certainly no one has been elected since 



