NA TURE 



49 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1887. 



POLITICS AND THE PRESIDENCY OF THE 

 ROYAL SOCIETY. 



THE combination of vigorous intellect, profound 

 knowledge, and scrupulous integrity, is not so 

 common among our legislators, that a good citizen, 

 whatever his political convictions, can have any feeling 

 but one of satisfaction at the entrance into the House of 

 Commons of the new member designate for the Uni- 

 versity of Cambridge. Prof. Stokes's foes (if indeed he 

 have any foes), no less than his friends, will concur in 

 attributing these qualifications to him. No man in the 

 scientific world is, or deserves to be, more respected or 

 more popular. 



In that world many will doubtless find an additional 

 source of congratulation in this public recognition of the 

 merits of their colleague by the dominant political party 

 in the University of Cambridge. And many will probably 

 entertain the hope that the addition of another man of 

 science to the three or four, who already occupy seats in 

 the House of Commons, may do something towards 

 the enlightenment and guidance of the House and of 

 the Government, when scientific questions come under 

 discussion. 



In the minds of thoughtful men, more or less familiar 

 with the realities of political and official life, however, it 

 is probable that reflections of a less satisfactory nature 

 may arise. They may regret that faculties which are 

 so eminently fitted to serve science should inevitably be 

 devoted to the interests of a party. Inevitably, because, 

 with whatever high resolves the nominee of the Conser- 

 vatives of Cambridge enters Parliament,he will find, before 

 he has been there a week, that he is expected to do what 

 the Whips bid him to do. And again such persons may 

 think,not unreasonably, that Science is every day becoming 

 more and more able to look after her own interests ; and 

 that, for her own honour and dignity, it is better that they 

 should be neglected than that they should be promoted 

 by back-stairs agencies. Moreover, experience may sug- 

 gest that the deliberate judgment of the majority of 

 scientific men, upon any question in which State inter- 

 vention is called for, may be widely difi'erent from the 

 view taken by this or that member of their body who 

 happens to have a seat in Parliament ; and that it 

 is extremely undesirable that less legitimate methods 

 of influencing a Minister should be substituted for the 

 present fair and open mode of placing a case before 

 him by responsible and authorized deputations. 



But, whatever doubts may be entertained as to the 

 service which has been, or can be, rendered to science by 

 scientific members of Parliament, it is obviously within 

 the right of every man to judge for himself whether he will 

 become one or not. So far as Prof. Stokes is simply a very 



distinguished mathematician and physicist, it is for him, 

 and for him alone, to decide between the claims of science, 

 on the one hand, and those of political and ecclesiastical 

 conviction on the other. 



; At the present moment, however, Prof. Stokes is some- 

 thing more than an eminent investigator and teacher : he is 

 President of the Royal Society ; and. as such, he enjoys all 

 the prestige which is given by the fact that, in the eye of 



Vol. xxxYii,— No. 542. 



the public, he has the oldest, the strongest, and the most 

 widely representative body of men of science in the 

 country at his back. The President is the organ and 

 mouth-piece of the Council of the Royal Society — a body 

 which has frequent and important relations with the 

 Government ; and, as such, it may often be his business 

 to represent to the Government the conclusions at which 

 the Council arrives. It is therefore highly important that 

 the freedom of the President's intercourse with Minis- 

 ters should be in no way trammelled by his political 

 relations. 



It may be quite safely affirmed that Prof. Stokes's 

 political and ecclesiastical views were not taken into 

 consideration by those who placed him in the chair of 

 the Royal Society. The last half-dozen of his prede- 

 cessors, to go no further back, have sedulously abstained, 

 during their occupancy of the chair, from holding office in 

 anyother Society,no less than taking part in any public,and 

 especially political, action about which the opinions of the 

 Fellows could be divided. Prof. Stokes has not followed 

 this prudent example. Some little time ago he accepted 

 the Presidency of a body of pronounced theological ten- 

 dencies ; and he now accepts the nomination of a no less 

 pronounced political party, and, since our note upon his 

 candidature appeared, he has issued an address in which 

 he promises to devote himself to certain party objects. 



It does not appear that Prof. Stokes has obtained, or, 

 indeed, sought, the sanction of the Councilorof the Society, 

 at large, for this departure from precedent. For such it is, 

 in spite of the fact that Sir Isaac Newton was a member 

 of Parliament during his Presidency, and that many peers 

 have occupied the chair. But it is obvious that a peer need 

 not be a party politician ; and, as regards the precedent 

 of Sir Isaac Newton, it is enough to point out that the 

 House of Commons of the end of the nineteenth century 

 is a very different body from the House of Commons of 

 the beginning of the eighteenth century. The position 

 of an independent member has become impossible ; and 

 those who refer to Prof. Stokes's address will see 'that, 

 whatever his first feelings may have been, he, now 

 at any rate, does not propose to be anything but a staunch 

 Conservative. 



No doubt there are many staunch Conservatives in the 

 Royal Society, but no doubt also there are many equally 

 staunch Liberals and Radicals ; and if it had entered into 

 the imagination of the latter that Prof. Stokes would carry 

 the prestige of the Presidency into the service of their 

 political opponents, it may be doubted whether they would 

 have voted for him. The same argument would apply with 

 equal force if Prof. Stokes happened to be a Liberal. 

 The question before us is one not of party, but of 

 principle. 



We are in the midst of a great political struggle, and it 

 may be safely predicted that the force of party feeling will 

 increase rather than diminisTi for years to come. If it is 

 permissible that the President of the Royal Society may 

 be a political personage, the minds of the Fellows on St. 

 Andrew's Day will be divided between two sets of con- 

 siderations. Not only will each ask, " Is A.B. the best 

 man for the Presidency in the interests of science and of 

 the Society .? " which is the only question he ought to 

 put ; but he will ask, " Is A.B. of my politics, or the 

 opposite."*" 



