44 Bio^raf)hical MbUioir 



tiou of a mere amateur to occupy the chair once filled by New- 

 ton. It was alleged against him, that he arrogated to himself 

 the exclusive power of introducing new members to the Society, 

 and by this means to fill it with ignorant and and trifling men of 

 wealth and rank ; while the inventor in art, the discoverer in sci- 

 ence, and the teacher of knowledge, were driven away with scorn. 

 It was said that his hostility to mathematical knowledge threat- 

 ened to bring it into discredit and neglect in the Society ; and it 

 \vas sarcastically but unjustly observed, that " he possessed no 

 scientific merits, but such as depended merely on bodily labour 

 and the expenditure of money." 



Such were the numerous complaints against the new President : 

 but however respectal)le the persons from whom these com- 

 plaints emanated, — however deep and general the impression 

 which they made, — they have since been proved to have been ex- 

 ceedingly unjust. 



When Sir Joseph Banks was raised to the Presidency, he found 

 secretaries ambitious of assuming that power which alone be- 

 longed to his office, and that too great a facility was given to the 

 admission of members: so much was this the case, that D'Alem- 

 bert used jocosely to ask any of his acquaintance coming to En- 

 gland, if they wished to become members of the Society ? and 

 intimating, that if they thought it an honour, he could easily 

 obtain it for them. Sir Joseph Banks, therefore, with wise and 

 zealous attention to the true interests of the Society, resolved to 

 use every just and honourable precaution to hinder the honours 

 of its fellowship from being in future improperly bestowed. The 

 first principle which he thought proper to adopt, with a view to 

 this end, was, that ' all persons of fair moral character and 

 decent manners, who had eminently distinguished themselves by 

 discoveries or inventions of high importance in any of those 

 branches of art or science which it was the express object of 

 this Society to cultivate, ought, whatever their condition in life, 

 to be gladly received among its members.' But, in the next 

 place, he was of opinion, ' that of those who were merely lovers 

 of jirt or science, and had made no remarkably ingenious contri- 

 butions to their improvement, none ought to be hastily received 

 into the Royal Society, whose rank and fortune were not such as 

 to reflect on thiit society and its pursuits a degree of new splen- 

 dour, as well as to endow them with the means of promoting its 

 views on fit occasions by extraordinary expense.' It is impos- 

 aible to deny that by these principles (and we know no better) 

 has the conduct of Sir Joseph Banks been ever chiefly regulated 

 in regard to the admission of new members. Against the spe- 

 cious philosophy of the theorist, the atheist, and the innovator 



delighting 



