366 PROCEEDINaS OF THE SOCIETY. 



the annual subscriptions which would be otherwise payable by the 

 Fellows compounding. This, I think, is a luxurious prudence that 

 leaves nothing to be desired. 



" Being, therefore, in that position, I submit that we may fairly 

 spend (provided we do not spend injudiciously, which is not suggested) 

 all that we receive year by year. Why should we save ? I will not 

 perpetrate the old joke about the want of reciprocity on the part of 

 posterity, but if ever there was a case in which posterity may be left 

 to look after itself it is in the case of a Society such as this. If 

 succeeding generations take sufficient interest in Microscopy to have 

 500 Members they will be able to get on as we are now getting 

 on, and why should we tax or starve oui'selves to give them more ? If 

 they will exert themselves to increase their numbers they will be 

 better off, but even if they have fewer it cannot be said that any of 

 the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, but it will be 

 simply the sins of the children coming home to roost, and I cannot, 

 therefore, conceive any principle on which we should be called upon 

 to abstain from spending the money which we oiu"selves have collected, 

 either to provide for the shortcomings of, or to confer exceptional 

 benefits on, our posterity. 



" I would also point out that what is applicable to commercial 

 ventures is also applicable in principle, if in a less degree, to a 

 Society like ours, viz. :^that the receipts increase as a direct conse- 

 quence of the increase in the expenses. If we had not expended so 

 much we should not have received so much. 



" Finally, I wish to point out that the prosperity of the Society 

 cannot be allowed to depend on the energy or enthusiasm of any one 

 man or set of men. Unless all co-operate it is inevitable that the 

 Society will in time languish, and I would therefore make an earnest 

 appeal to all the Fellows not to let any year go by without being 

 able to say that they have contributed something to the advancement of 

 the interests of the Society. I venture to think that in regard to sub- 

 scriptions to scientific societies there is too great a tendency to consider 

 the payment of the subscription as the whole duty to be performed, 

 and that it then only remains to watch and see that some one else 

 returns value for the money. It is obvious, however, when once the 

 matter is stated, that this is a wrong notion, and that the association 

 of persons in a scientific society ought to depend upon a very different 

 tie to that of a pecuniary one merely, the subscription being really 

 only the minimum contribution which it is necessary to insist that all 

 the members should make. 



" It is hardly necessary to point out what an increased amount of 

 activity we should present if we had 1000 Fellows instead of 500, and 

 having regard to the widespread interest in the Microscope, I see no 

 reason why we should not equal the numbers either of Chemists, 

 Geologists, or Zoologists. 



" To allow the resolution just passed to stand by itself would give 

 rise to the notion that the Journal was the production of a single 

 individual, which it certainly is not, and I beg therefore to propose 

 t.hat tlic tlianks of the Society be also given to the Publication Com- 



