Dec. I, 1887] 



NATURE 



103 



tives, they give better results than the majority of 

 Huyghenian eye-pieces. 



We close the book, nevertheless, feeling that it will be 

 an acquisition to many who are without information, and 

 ■want it, as to how to use the microscope. 



A Sketch of Geological History, being the Natural History 

 of the Earth and of its Pre- Human Inhabitants. By 

 Edward Hull, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. (London: C. W. 

 Deacon and Co., 1887.) 



In a prefatory note the publishers of this little book 

 inform the readers that it constitutes the first of a series of 

 volumes devoted to a " Sketch of Universal History." We 

 must congratulate the publishers on having discovered an 

 author with sufficient knowledge, and at the same time 

 with the necessary courage, for coping with such an 

 undertaking. In 148 small pages we have a description 

 of the " original condition of the globe " when it first 

 assumed its present form, followed by sketches of the 

 Archaean and succeeding periods of the earth's history ; 

 the whole concluding with a retrospect, which reads like 

 the moral of a fable. The work, it is believed, will form 

 an appropriate introduction to three similar volumes in 

 which the modern history of the world is sketched. 1 he 

 book before us is a marvel of condensation ; but in 

 reading it we feel like the unfortunate individuals who 

 are compelled to support life on lozenges composed of 

 " Liebig's Extract." 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



\The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he under- 

 take to return, or to correspond with the writers of, 

 rejected manuscripts. No notice is taken op anonymous 

 communications. 



C The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their 

 letters as short as possible. The pressure on his space 

 is so great that it is impossible otherwise to insure the 

 appearance even of commuttications containing interesting 

 and novel facts. 



Politics and the Presidency of the Royal Society, 



I THINK that you have done the scientific world a great 

 service in pointing out, in language to which it seems to me no 

 one can take exception, the inconveniences which may arise 

 from the President of the Royal Society occupying a seat in 

 Parliament. 



No one will, I think, contest the fact that the Royal Society 

 occupies a unique place in our social organization. It differs 

 from all other Societies in constitution, temperament, and tra- 

 dition. To persons unacquainted with its working, its method 

 of procedure often seems deliberate and formal to a fault. To 

 those who take part in its work it is obvious that its intellectual 

 freedom is absolutely unrestrained, and that, subject to such 

 mistakes as no human institution can claim exemption from, its 

 impartiality and independence of judgment are absolutely un- 

 fettered. This arises from the fact that it is a picked body of 

 men of the most diverse mental attitudes, who owe their asso- 

 ciation to nothing but their own exertions, and who are in the 

 habit of expressing themselves with the utmost frankness on 

 subjects of common interest discussed amongst themselves. 



With the general body of Fellows the Council, from the 

 rapidity with which it is changed, is in constant touch. It is no 

 great assumption, then, to conclude that the Council when it 

 speaks will have behind it the approval of the Fellows — that is, 

 in point of fact, the sanction of the general scientific opinion of 

 the Empire. 



Now, the President of the Royal Society, when he speaks 

 ofificially, is something more than the President of a learned 

 ^Society : he is virtually the Speaker of the English scientific 



world. This being so, his position appears to me to he no small 

 one. It is one which in emergencies may become of paramount 

 importance. And it is this view of his position which disposes 

 me to think that it is desirable that the occupant of such a post 

 should be politically unfettered. I apprehend that this view is 

 shared by Prof. Balfour Stewart when he says : " I grant freely 

 that under ordinary circumstances it is undesirable that the 

 President of the Royal Society should enter the House of 

 Commons." And it is not difficult to see why it is undesirable. 



Successive Governments, as is well known, are in the habit of 

 consulting the Royal Society on scientific questions, the solution 

 of which may possibly influence or determine a public policy. 

 To such appeals the Royal Society has hitherto replied to the 

 best of its ability without fear or favour. Will it always have 

 the same freedom when its President is amenable to party dis- 

 cipline ? It is only necessary to point to the last session of Par- 

 liament to see that there were many occasions when the position 

 of the President on the Government benches would have been a 

 not wholly pleasant one. Much bebadgered Ministers would 

 perhaps have come up to him and have said. You must really 

 make some concession, and the man would be made of iron who 

 would not sometimes yield. Then, having been squeezed him- 

 self, he would return to his Council with :— " In the House of 

 Commons the other night a very strong opinion was expressed 

 to me," &c., and the process of squeezing would be transferred 

 to the Council. It is no use saying that these things would not 

 happen ; because everyone knows that in actual political life 

 they do. If the President descends from the dignified reserve 

 which hedges him in at Burlington House, he will have to take 

 his chance with the disabilities of the ordinary Parliamentary 

 rank and file. 



I cannot therefore resist the conclusion that a President of 

 the Royal Society owes it to himself and to his position to hold 

 aloof from all influences that would impair his freedom, and, as 

 a consequence, that of the Society. His position is one of the 

 few in the country which is unique not merely from its absolute 

 indejiendence of external public influence, but from the sanction 

 which is given to the action of its occupant by internal support. 

 The impossibility of allowing the Judges to sit in the House of 

 Commons is, I suppose, apparent to everyone, and, in my view, 

 every disability in that respect which attaches to them attaches 

 with equal force to the President. 



I wiH only trespass on your space with two further obser- 

 vations. 



Prof. Balfour Stewart's last argument is, of course, purely 

 political, and, being so, appears to me to be the one thing needed 

 to demonstrate the unadvisability of any exception to the 

 general principle to which he adheres. He says that the Presi- 

 dent " has chosen to be an Englishman first and a man of 

 science afterwards." Yes. But — and I trust that no shade of 

 impropriety may be thought to attach to the argument — would 

 he have been as equally acquiescent had the President chosen 

 the political rtle of Irishman as his first duty ? 



Lastly, Prof. Williamson remarks that our President cannot 

 " be supposed to have entered the House as the political repre- 

 sentative of the Koyal Society." But unfortunately he cannot 

 help himself. He cannot sirik his official status. The House of 

 Commons will take note of it just as it does of that of the Lord 

 Mayor and of the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of 

 Works, who do not sit in Parliament by virtue of their official 

 positions. Yet, being there, they are liable to interpellations 

 with respect to the business of the bodies over which they 

 preside. I do not see why the President of the Royal Society 

 should expect immunity from the same discipline, and the result, 

 it is easy to see, might be extremely embarrassing to the Royal 

 Society, which has other, and in my opinion more constitutional, 

 modes of communicating with the Government, and, if need be, 

 with Parliament. 



