122 



Let it be remembered that this list includes none but what 

 may be called the Natural Sciences Societies, and only those 

 in London. Were we to take in all the other scientific bodies 

 in the metropolis, and then further extend the list to the 

 many diflferent societies in provincial towns — setting the 

 Field Clubs entirely aside — we should be amazed at the 

 number. With regard to provincial institutions for the 

 promotion of science, the wish expressed by Sir Isaac Newton 

 in 1712, that " there were a Philosophic Society in every town 

 where there was company enough to support them,"* is in the 

 way of fast being carried out. And what a view does all this 

 present to a thoughtful spectator, of the movement made for 

 science at the present day. To go back to a still earlier 

 philosopher than Newton, the great Lord Bacon, we seem, in 

 all these societies, dividing the sciences among them, in some 

 measure to realise the imaginary college sketched out in his 

 New Atlantis, under the name of Solomon's House, instituted 

 for " extending our knowledge of every part of nature," 

 where the work was in like manner parcelled out to diflferent 

 classes of labourers, each class having its appointed duties to 

 fulfil. 



Yet various as are the pursuits of these different societies, 

 they have all one common object in view, and that is truth. 

 It was remarked by one of the wise men in Solomons House, 

 that it was theu' privilege to " know the works of creation and 

 true secrets of them, and to discern (as far as appertaineth to 

 the generations of men) between divine miracles, works of 

 nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts." 

 So, too, it is both the privilege and the duty of the man of 

 science at the present day to follow after truth, as the one 

 thing at which he is to aim — whatever he takes in hand, 

 whatever he looks into, whatever he reflects on, whatever he 

 seeks to explain to himself or others. 



* Weld's " Hist, of Hoy. Soc," vol. i., p. 422. 



