VI 



Preface 



election of ordinary Fellows by the general body of the 

 Society was fixed to take place only on the first Thursday 

 in June. Of this meeting ample notice was to be given, and 

 a list of the candidates, proposed by the Council, to be 

 circulated previously among the Fellows. The number 

 of names on this list was not to exceed fifteen, and they 

 were to be carefully selected by the Council. This principle 

 of limitation and selection has lasted to the present day, 

 and has done much to enhance the prestige of the Society. 

 But as danger always exists of enthusiasm flagging and 

 abuses creeping back, the more zealous reformers determined 

 to found a dinner Club, which, instead of being almost 

 wholly social, like the one already in existence, should 

 aim at checking any retrograde tendencies in the Council 

 of the Royal Society, at stimulating the intellectual ac- 

 tivity of its members, and at strengthening the influence 

 of Science in Britain. To facilitate the first and second 

 of these purposes, the rules enacted that no strangers, 

 except " scientific foreigners temporarily visiting this 

 country," were to be present at any of the Club meetings ; 

 thus securing free discussion of subjects, for which publicity 

 might often be undesirable ; while for the third purpose, 

 the chairman was directed, after dinner, to invite any one 

 present to make a communication on some subject which 

 he thought interesting. An abstract of this, with any 

 remarks of importance which it might elicit from other 

 members, was to be entered in the Minute Book and read 

 at the next meeting. These records the distinctive feature 

 in the Minutes of the Philosophical Club are preserved in 

 two folio volumes, bound in red-maroon calf : the one 

 presented by Sir H. T. de la Beche, the other (about half -full 

 and ending June 13, 1901) by Sir W. R. Grove. Their 

 interest is great, as I hope to show, but their disconnected 

 nature seemed to me to make a continuous narrative almost 

 impossible. I have therefore decided to arrange the contents 

 of these Minute Books in two sections, corresponding with 

 the purposes mentioned above ; the first relating the 

 history of the Club and its members, and of their efforts 



