364 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, xx 



The following letter to Mr. Clodd, thanking him for the 

 new edition of Bates' Naturalist on the Amazons, helps to 

 remove a reproach sometimes brought against the Royal 

 Society, in that it ignored the claims of distinguished men 

 of Science to membership of the Society : 



HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE, Dec. 9, 1892. 



MY DEAR MR. CLODD Many thanks for the new edition of 

 " Bates." I was reading the Life last night with great interest; 

 some of the letters you have printed are admirable. 



Lyell is hit off to the life. I never read a more penetrating 

 character-sketch. Hooker's letter of advice is as sage as might 

 be expected from a man who practised what he preached about 

 as much as I have done. I shall find material for chaff the next 

 time my old friend and I meet. 



I think you are a little hard on the Trustees of the British 

 Museum, and especially on the Royal Society. The former are 

 hampered by the Treasury and the Civil Service regulations. If 

 a Bates turned up now I doubt if one could appoint him, how- 

 ever much one wished it, unless he would submit to some idiotic 

 examination. As to the Royal Society, I undertake to say that 

 Bates might have been elected fifteen years earlier if he had so 

 pleased. But the Council cannot elect a man unless he is pro- 

 posed, and I always understood that it was the res angusta 

 which stood in the way. 



It is the same with . (Twenty years ago) the Royal 



Society awarded him the Royal Medal, which is about as broad 

 an invitation to join us as we could well give a man. In fact, 

 I do not think he has behaved well in quite ignoring it. For- 

 merly there was a heavy entrance fee as well as the annual sub- 

 scription. But a dozen or fifteen years ago the more pecunious 

 Fellows raised a large sum of money for the purpose of abolish- 

 ing this barrier. At present a man has to pay only 3 a year 

 and no entrance. I believe the publications of the Society, 

 which he gets, will sell for more.* 



So you see it is not the fault of the Royal Society if anybody 

 who ought to be in keeps out on the score of means. Ever yours 

 very faithfully, T. H. HUXLEY. 



* The " Fee Reduction Fund," as it is now called, enables the 

 Society to relieve a Fellow from the payment even of his annual fee, 

 so that being F.R.S. costs him nothing. 



