48 A NOTICE OF THE 



as Secretary, by the unanimous request of the company. The 

 minutes are described to be those of " a meeting of gentlemen, 

 friends of science, and of rational disposal of leisure moments." 



It may be stated, after a careful examination of the archives 

 and the traditions in the Society, that at this first meeting various 

 plans of a society were submitted and discussed, and that, after 

 having agreed upon the general basis, the details of organization 

 were referred to a committee. 



It was agreed that the exclusive object of the society should 

 be the cultivation of natural science. 



A memorandum of a conversation which occurred at this 

 meeting, informs us that the founders clearly perceived the im- 

 portance of the work in which they were about to engage, and 

 entertained, vaguely it may be, most agreeable anticipations of 

 the future extent and eminence of the institution. They clearly 

 perceived that " the operations of nature," to use the language 

 of the memorandum, " demand unprejudiced, attentive, and se- 

 vere scrutiny; and, [in order] that men may aid each other by a 

 comparison of observations, their discussions must be free." It 

 was said that sectarians " are prone to oppose the promulgation 

 and development of any newly-discovered fact, which to them 

 seems likely in the least to militate against their cause or dog- 

 mas ; and it was from such motives that men of science, in the 

 dark ages, experienced so much persecution ; and they have ex- 

 perienced persecution even to our own time, until truth became 

 too powerful for their opposition." 



For such reasons, it was feared that political or religious dis- 

 putants, should they become members of the society, might exert 

 an unhappy influence on its prosperity. The founders hoped 

 that all the members elected would be lovers or cultivators of 

 science and polite literature ; and while all were to be unques- 

 tioned upon their religious and political creeds, the wand and the 

 sceptre were to be laid down at the doors of an institution de- 

 voted entirely to science. It was determined that neither religion 

 nor politics, in any shape or form, should be even alluded to at 

 any meeting of the society ; and it was perhaps from this deter- 

 mination the erroneous notion sprang, which according to tradi- 

 tion prevailed with some, that the object of the institution was 

 to favor religious infidelity. 



The company resolved itself into a committee of organization ; 



