THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF ITALY. 117 



leader in science, as Viviani, the great geometer, and Torricelli, 

 the inventor of the barometor, at Florence, the Morgagni at 

 Bologna, and Da Vinci at Milan. 



If all these could have been consolidated into one central cor- 

 poration, their Transactions would have compared favorably with 

 those of any other similar society. Another source of the un- 

 fruitfulness of Italian scientific societies was the emigration of 

 some of their most eminent members to foreign cities, induced by 

 the wider fields and richer rewards which such cities as Paris and 

 St. Petersburg offered in contrast to those of one of their narrow 

 republics. 



But more than all this, more than all else combined, was the 

 deadening influence of ecclesiastical disapprobation. In this at- 

 mosphere no freedom of thought or independence of research was 

 possible. 



To what purpose were life and energies to be devoted to the 

 discovery of some great law of Nature, to find the results, if dis- 

 pleasing to the ecclesiastical authorities, interdicted from publi- 

 oation, and the person, instead of decorations, subjected to im- 

 prisonment, or worse ? But the present and future are more 

 hopeful. The atmosphere is clearer and healthier, although it 

 required the thunder and lightning of Garibaldi and Victor 

 Emanuel to effect it. 



The old Italy has passed away. 



There is now a Giovine Italia, and there is every indication of 

 a new impetus to scientific research. 



When we recall such names as Columbus, Cardan, Leonardo 

 da Vinci, Bruno, Galileo, Porta, Cesi, Fabricius, Torricelli, Viviani, 

 Telesio, Campanella, Vanini, Bovelli, Cassini, Bellini, Morgagni, 

 Malpighi, Galvani, and Volta, it is but to be reminded of many of 

 the most glorious achievements of science, though some of the 

 authors were obliged to go to other countries to obtain them, 

 while of those who remained in Italy some were rewarded with 

 the stake. If so much was done under such adverse circum- 

 stances, one can not but wonder what would have been the result 

 had science received the same encouragement in Italy that fos- 

 tered art and music, and which science received in London, Paris, 

 Berlin, and St. Petersburg. 



TnE present position of anthropology, says Dr. Alexander Macalister, of the 

 Anthropological Section of the British Association, is critical and peculiar ; for 

 while on the one hand the facilities for research are daily growing greater in 

 some directions, the material is diminishing in quantity and accessibility— treas- 

 ures both of the structure and the works of man are accumulating in our museums, 

 but, at the same time, some of the most interesting tribes have vanished, and others 

 are rapidly disappearing or being absorbed in other races. 



