Scientific Reviews. \ *351 



Other nations have other modes of rewarding and encouraging . 

 science. ' 



" In other countries It has been found, and is admitted, that a knowledge of 

 science is a recommendation to public appointments, and that a man does not 

 make a worse ambassador because he has directed an observatory, or has added 

 by his discoveries to the extent of our knowledge of animated nature. Instances 

 even are not wanting of ministers who have begun their career in the inquiries of, 

 pure analysis ;" and the autlior mentions the names of Laplace, Camot, Chaptal, 

 Cuvier, the two Humboldts, Rangoni, Fossombroni, and Lindenau, as " a few 

 a£ those men of science who have formerly held, or who now hold, high official 

 stations in the governments of their respective countries." — ^p. 26. 



But the state of the learned societies, and of the Royal Society in ■ 

 particular, form, with IMr. Babbage, the main cause of the retarda- 

 tion of science in this country, and on this point he dilates to a 

 great extent. This subject will, however, afford us a topic for an- 

 other article.* 



To give an instance of the condition of some of our societies, and 

 at the same time a specimen of the tone which Mr. Babbage has ' 

 employed in his volume, we extract the following remarks on the 

 IMedico-Botanical Society : — 



" The Medico-Botanical Society suddenly claimed the attention of the pub- 

 lie ; its pretensions were great — its assurance unbounded. It speedily became 

 distinguished, not by its publications or discoveries, but by the number of 

 princes it enrolled in its list. It is needless now to expose the extent of its 

 short-lived quackery ; but the evil deeds of that institution will long remain in 

 the impression they have contributed to confinti throughout Europe, of the cha- 

 racter of our scientific establishments. It would be at once a judicious and a 

 dignified course, if those lovers of science, who have been so grievously deceived 

 in this society, were to enrol upon the latest page of its history its highest claim 

 to public approbation, and by signing its dissolution, offer the only atonement in 

 their power to the insulted science of their country. As with a singular inversion 



and splendid discovery would long since have been represented to government. 

 Expectant mediocrity would have urged on his claims to remuneration, and 

 those who covered their selfish purposes with the cloak of science, would have 

 hastened to shelter themselves in the mantle of his glory .^ — But the philosopher 

 may find consolation for the tardy approbation of that society, in the applause 

 of Europe. If he was insulted by their medal, he escaped the pain of seeing > 

 his name connected with their proceedings." 



• We are induced to defer noticing the state of the Royal Society till we 

 have had an opportunity of seeing a work by Mr. South, one of tlie members of 

 the Council of the Society, which is now in preparation, as we learn from the 

 following paragraph, extracted from a letter from that gentleman, to .the editor 

 of the Times newspaper : — " Being engaged on a work rendered necessary by the 

 appearance of Mr. Babbage's recent pamphlet On the Decline of Science in Eng. 

 land, I had occasion to refer to the ' glass-making proceedings' of the Royal So- 

 ciety. On application, however, for the minutes of the sub-committee, to whose 

 superintendence the affair had been intrusted, I found, to my astonishment, that 

 they are not in the Society's possession. As these experiments, during the last 

 six years, have been attended with consideral)le expense to the nation, and as 

 this is not the only instance in which public documents when asked for could 

 not be produced, mav I, Mr. Editor, be permitted, through yoti, to request the 

 president and council will restore them to their proper place in the Society's 

 apartments, where they may be accessible to every member who wishes to con- 

 sult them ; and from which they ought never to have been removed ?" 

 vol.. II. * 2 Y 



