December 8, 1892] 



NATURE 



OD 



what ought to be said for so ^reat an institutioa. I can 

 only say in my own way that I believe the Royal Society, 

 as an institution, has up to the present titne persevered in 

 well-doing, and had been successful in its efforts. The 

 Royal Society has certainly endeavoured to carry out the objects 

 of its institution— namely, to inquire into natural knowledge and 

 the improvement of it. The mode of carrying out tint object 

 was cJirefully considered, no doubt, by those who founded the 

 Royal Society ; and they determined to hold regular meetings, 

 partaking somewhat of the character of a debating society — 

 meetings where discussions could be raised by questions pre- 

 sented, and the truth arrived at thereby. That object has been 

 carried out from the inception of the Society to the present day ; 

 and the society has been imitated by other societies over a 

 large part of ihe civilized world. Indeed, the Royal Society 

 itself only followed in the path of other learned societies in 

 Italy, which had determined that by personal discussion 

 of questions in regular meetings truth might be arrived at which 

 otherwise might be lost. We often find complaints that meetings 

 of scientific societies are unsatisfactory. We have even complaints 

 that the important duty, the publication of their proceedings for 

 the rest of the world, is not altogether ideally perfect. Some 

 who desire the progress of science above all, and heartily wish 

 success to the Royal Society, think that the society ought to be 

 a body for merely recording and indexing the work that has 

 been done all over the world. That is a part of the work of the 

 Royal Society which is not neglected. The council has had 

 most anxious, careful, and laborious consultations from year to 

 year with reference to this work — not only as to the publication 

 of its own transactions and proceedings, but as to the catalogu- 

 ing and indexing of the proceedings of scientific bodies and 

 scientific workers all over the world. One very important part 

 of the work of the society consists of the cataloguing of all 

 scientific papers published ; and a very dry and fatiguing subject 

 it is to work upon. The difficulty here is embarras dc richesses. 

 To get the titles only of these papers is itself a truly Herculean 

 task. If the Royal Society had not only capacity, but had also 

 great funds at its disposal, it would make short work of this task. 

 It would not only index, it would publish the papers : and 

 would put them in such a form that any one could find 

 his own particular subject at once, and the particular 

 volume and page in which it was treated. This is an ex- 

 ceedingly difficult subject, but the first necessity is funds, and 

 if those were supplied all the rest would follow. The publish- 

 ing and indexing, however, is not the only work of the society. 

 The life and^oul of its work is in its meetings and discussions, 

 and whoever has not felt the stimulus of attending tfiose meet-- 

 ings has hardly yet found out the spirit of scientific enquiry. 

 For myself, I say the fact that we can attend meetings of the 

 Royal Society, and hear papers on subjects very far removed 

 from the subjects of oar every-day work, is a stimulus which is 

 of the highest value. The worker who has heard what other 

 people are doing goes back to his work with something which 

 may help him in it, which, at any rate, brightens his life, and 

 makes the drudgery and heavy work necessary for success in 

 any scientific investigation less irksome and dry. Vox myself I 

 may say that my connexion with the Royal Society, extending 

 over a great many years, has been one of unmixed benefit and 

 pleasure, and has given to me some of the happiest of those 

 pictures of knowledge and memory the possession of which 

 constitutes so much of the delight of life. Mr. Acland 

 remarked upon my having been hard upon the geolo- 

 gists. I do not think that I have actually been so. I do 

 not believe in one science for the mathematician, another for the 

 chemist, another for the physicist, and another for the geologist. 

 All science is one science ; and any part of science which places 

 iiself outside the pale of the other sciences ceases for the time 

 being to be a science. The sooner it returns to the pale of the 

 other sciences the better ; and when all are working for a com- 

 mon good the better it will be for the progress of each. 



Prof. Huxley, in proposing the next toast, said that he had to 

 discourse on the merits of the gentlemen to whom medals had 

 been awarded. There was one the adequate treatment of whose 

 merits would occupy the whole available time ; and yet Mr. 

 Shav-Lefevre wished him to say something about his capacity 

 to become a legislator and also to give an opinion upon geo- 

 logical time. He would answer the first interroganon by telling a 

 story. When he was a very young man a solicitor in large practice 

 discovered in him what that gentleman believed qualities t hat would 

 command success at the Bar, which he had never discovered 



NO. 1206, VOL. 47] 



himself, and proposed to advance him an income for a certain 

 number of years until he could pay the amount back oat of the 

 fees he was sure to earn. He was sorry to say his reply was 

 this, "So far as I understand myself, my faculties are so entirely 

 confined to the discovery of truth that I have no sort of power 

 of obscuring it." With regard to political life, the absolute 

 contradictions that were made by politicians of opposite sides 

 upon matters of fact were absolutely fatal to his chances in a 

 political career. Coming to the subject of the toast, he narrated 

 the history of the Copley medal. A bequest of ;^ioo was left 

 to the Society i88 years ago by Godfrey Copley, a Fellow 

 of the Society, for improving natural knowledge. The 

 medal was thrown open to all the world, a step much 

 disapproved by certain narrow-minded persons at the time ; 

 biit that step was the real reason why, a century later. Sir 

 Humphry Davy could really call it ".the ancient olive crown of 

 the society." The value of the medal was originally fixed at 

 ;i^5, people being able to get five per cent, for their money in 

 those halcyon days. He did not like to dwell upm its appre- 

 ciation now lest the County Council should pat in a claiii for 

 unearned incren\ent. The medal had certaiidy done nothing 

 for itself ; the appreciation of its value had arisen entirely from 

 surrounding circumstances, the chief being the wisdom and 

 integrity of some eighty successive councils. A complete list of 

 the awards was published every year. Going back one hundred 

 years from 1887 — he had a reason for not takiig a later date — 

 the century hegan with John Hunter, and finislied with Joseph 

 Hooker. Between them was a galaxy of the heroes of science, 

 French, German, Scandinavian, Italian, American, and English ; 

 and, although one star might differ from an ither star in glory, 

 none was unworthy of its place in the constellation. The 

 present council had not fallen below the standard of its pre- 

 decessors ; there was no biologist, no scientific physician, no 

 anthropologist, no archjeologist to whom the name of 

 the illustrious Rector of the University of Berlin, 

 Rudolph Virchow, was not familiar. No one had done 

 more to put pathology on a scientific foundation ; no 

 one had done more for critical anthropology, especially in con- 

 nection with archaeology. Without venturing on the dangerous 

 field of politics, he would add that these merits were, to his 

 mind, greatly enhanced by the fact that Virchow had never 

 merged the citizen in the philosopher, but amidst great difficul- 

 ties and with undaunted courage, he had taken an active, a 

 disinterested, and a thoroughly independent course in the 

 Legislature of his country. The next medal in order of age 

 was that founded by Count Rumford at the commencement of 

 this century, on equally cosmopolitan principles, but limited in 

 scope to the physico-chemical sciences. In these sciences 

 hardly anything had attracted popular attention more of recent 

 years than the marvellous power which spectroscopy had placed 

 in our hands to discern the chemical composition of bodies 

 which were millions and billions of miles away ; and, for 

 anything we knew to the contrary, these minute and careful 

 inquiries into the constitution of stars might he. post-mortem 

 examinations. In the accurate examination of stars by the 

 spectroscope, he understood from others that Dr. Duner, of 

 Sweden, had laid secure foundations for all future investiga- 

 tions. The Royal medals were founded by the Sovereign some 

 sixty-odd years ago, were now maintained by her Majesty, and 

 were confined to- British subjects. There were two medals every 

 year, and they were usually allotted one to physical and 

 chemical science, and the other to biological science. They 

 were usually given to younger men ; and it was so in his own 

 case forty years ago. The value of the medal was inexpressible 

 to him. In his younger days, if a man took to science, it was 

 thought he was going to the bad. The receipt of the medal 

 made an entire revolution in the minds of his friends ; and he 

 was a respectable person from that; time. On the present 

 occasion the first of these medals was awarded to the present 

 Director of the Astronomical Observatory in Oxford, Prof. 

 Pritchard, and he was told that there was no observatory in the 

 three kingdoms in which so much admirable work of observation 

 was being done. Only a short time ago the Royal Astronomical 

 Society awarded its gold medal to the Director of the Oxford 

 Observatory. He was further told that the director was tack- 

 ling what he understood was one of the most difficult pieces of 

 astronomical work — parallax determination ; and that he had 

 already printed off more stars than anybody else. Besides this, 

 he was hard at work on the great international chart of the 

 heavens. It was obvious that this gentleman must be in the 



