16 Baron Cuvier's Historical Eloge of 



that proved a sedative to all the passions which he had eX* 

 cited. Such a chief appeared, even to his own friends, an evil 

 more certain than any of those which he had predicted. He 

 was abandoned, and some meetings after, the society, by a so- 

 lemn deliberation, on the 8th January 1784, declared that it 

 was satisfied with its choice. Horsley, and some violent men 

 like himself, withdrew ; and, since that period, Mr Banks, con- 

 stantly re-elected, filled, in peace, this noble station during forty- 

 one successive years, a duration longer than that of any of his 

 predecessors. Newton himself only occupied the presidency 

 during twenty-four years. ^ 



Assuredly, if we cast a glance over the history of the Royal 

 Society during these forty-one years, we shall not find that it 

 had cause to repent of its resolution. 



During this epoch, so memorable in the history of the human 

 mind, the cultivators of science in England, — it is honourable for 

 us to say it, for us whose right to render this testimony cannot 

 be disputed, and who can render it without fear for ourselves, 

 — the cultivators of science in England have occupied as glorious 

 a part as those of any other country in those labours which are 

 common to all civilized nations. They have encountered the 

 ice of both poles ; they have left no region unvisited in either 

 ocean ; they have augmented the catalogue of the productions 

 of nature in a tenfold degree ; the heavens have been peopled 

 by them with planets, satellites, and unheard of phenomena ; 

 they have counted, so to speak, the stars of the Milky Way ; if 

 chemistry has assumed a new aspect, the facts with which they 

 have furnished it have essentially contributed to this metamor- 

 phosis ; inflammable air, pure air, phlogisticated air, we owe 

 to them ; they discovered the decomposition of water ; new 

 and numerous metals are the results of their analyses ; the na- 

 ture of the fixed alkalies was demonstrated by their experiments ; 

 mechanics, at their voice, have brought forth miracles, and placed 

 their country above others in almost every kind of manufac- 

 ture : and if, as no reasonable person can doubt, such successes 

 result from their personal energy and the general spirit of their 

 nation, much more than from the influence of an individual, in 

 whatever situation he may be ; it must yet be always acknow- 

 ledged, that Sir Joseph Banks did not abuse his situation, and 



