PUBLISHING COMMITTEES. 305 



unfrequently happens that partiality or prejudice 

 enters largely into these decisions ; for the publishing 

 committee being irresponsible, their decision is 

 final, and papers of the highest interest have been 

 known to share the fate of " Rejected Addresses," 

 when the views or theories they were intended to 

 promulgate were in opposition to those entertained 

 by the presiding judges.* By feelings of an opposite 

 tendency, performances of little interest and less 

 ability contrive to " pass muster," solely from the 

 interest of friends " at the board." Hence it is 

 generally found, that those members, who have the 

 means of bringing their investigations before the 

 scientific world through any other channel, are but 

 scanty contributors to the transactions of societies ; 

 or, if they occasionally venture to send in a paper, 

 take care that it should be confined to a matter-of- 

 fact subject, — the plumage of a new bird, or the cha- 

 racter of a new shell, — upon which there cannot, in 

 ordinary cases, be a difference of opinion. Interest, 

 in fact, is frequently as necessary for one descrip- 

 tion of these papers as for the other ; for, otherwise, 

 it is impossible to account for the insertion of one 

 hundred and nine contributions in the Philosophi- 

 cal Transactions by a late eminent surgeon, many 

 of which are not only erroneous in theory, but in- 

 correct as to facts. 



(212.) Oral discussion is limited to very few of 

 our societies, although it is perhaps the most agree- 



* A curious instance of this, furnished by the Zoological 

 Society (the least scientific in its objects of all those in Lon- 

 don), is mentioned in the Entomological Magazine, vol. ii. for 

 January, 1834. 



X 



