¢ 
300 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. ; 
namely, the Linnzean Society of London. By the 
admission of associates, who are allowed to parti- 
cipate in all those discussions and proceedings of 
the members, which are purely of a scientific 
character, we give advantages to a highly deserving 
class of students, whose love for science may be 
equal to our own, but whose limited means preclude 
them from contributing pecuniary aid to the ad- 
vancement of their favourite pursuits. The mutual 
advantages resulting from such a coalition need 
hardly be adverted to. On the one part, inform- 
ation on particular facts may be communicated, of 
the highest importance to the generalisations of the 
philosophic members ; while, on the other hand, the 
mind of the practical investigator of nature will be 
improved and expanded by intercourse with those 
whom he will look up to as his masters, and whose 
society could never have been enjoyed, but for the 
removal of those barriers with which, in England, 
an undue regard to wealth has securely fenced the 
different grades of society. 
(208.) The other peculiarity of our scientific in- 
stitutions is, perhaps, more remarkable than the last, 
_ and equally serves to illustrate what has been ex- 
pressed at the commencement of this chapter. Nots 
withstanding the number of our societies and as— 
sociations, respectively formed for the advancement 
either of physical science in general, or any one of 
its numerous branches, there is not one of sucha 
nature as to confer a purely honourable distinction on 
those whose pre-eminent abilities have placed them 
at the head of that particular science they cultivate. 
Taking, for instance, the Royal Society as the 
