THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 15 



of science. Independence has, however, been found to 

 be the healthiest condition, and we now have not only 

 the Linnean and the Geological, but the Zoological, 

 the Chemical, and the Physical Societies, vigorous and 

 important corporations, publishing their " Transactions," 

 and meeting for discussion. There is, it is true, a 

 danger that the Royal Society may be left eventually, 

 owing to these independent establishments, in the sole 

 possession and control of the doctors and the engineers. 

 It is a curious fact that the word " physiology," which 

 in Cicero^s time (he says " Physiologia naturae ratio ") 

 and in the Middle Ages meant what we now call 

 " natural history," has been abandoned by other sciences, 

 and appropriated by the medical men. In England, 

 but not abroad, the doctors have even usurped the 

 words " physician " and " physic." In France, on the 

 contrary, and more correctly, Lord Rayleigh and Sir 

 William Crooks are called distinguished "physicians," 

 and the theory of the luminiferous ether is " physic." 



The Geological Society issued its first volume ot 

 Transactions in 1811. The origin of the society is 

 there stated to be due to " the desire of its founders 

 to communicate to each other the results of their 

 observations, and to examine how far the opinions 

 maintained by the writers on geology are in conformity 

 with the facts presented by nature." A more exact and 

 intelligible statement of the attitude of scientific men, 

 then and now, could not be formulated. 



There are tew, if any, among us now who knew many 

 of the original members of the Geological Society, but 

 I remember meeting, when I was a youth, Leonard 

 Horner, the first secretary of the society, and father-in- 

 aw of Sir Charles Lyell. I also knew Dr. Peter Mark 

 Roget, an original member, who was the oldest fellow 

 of the Royal Society when he died in 1869. Sir Henry 

 Holland, the father of the present Lord Knutsford, 

 became a member in 1809, and published a paper 



