300 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



namely, the Linnaean 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 meansi 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. Not- 

 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 such a 

 nature as to confer ^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 



