I 22 



NA TURE 



[June 8, 189; 



to swamp the Society and to destroy its scientific prestige. 

 But the Royal Society is not a thing of yesterday ; and 

 accumulated experience has shown the way to the present 

 modus Vivendi which appears to me to have given the 

 maximum advantage to the scientific world over which 

 the Society presides without the remotest possibility of 

 injurious interference. 



It may be well to consider in what this lay element 

 consists. In the first place we have the Sovereign who 

 was the Founder and is always the Patron and may in the 

 future as in the past take an active part in the Society's 

 proceedings. Next there are the Princes of the Blood 

 any one of whom may at any time be summarily pro- 

 posed for election. The original statutes provided that 

 anyone of the rank of Baron or higher should be qualified 

 for election. That privilege was however abolished in 

 the present century, no doubt as opening the door to the 

 lay element too widely. But the privilege was retained 

 for the Privy Council, a body which in its constitution 

 is analogous to the Royal Society inasmuch as access 

 to it can only be obtained outside the Royal Family by 

 conspicuous ability independently of mere rank or birth. 

 And it may be noticed that the analogy is drawn even 

 closer by the recent admission to the Privy Council of a 

 scientific element. Each body has in fact in relation to 

 the State its own field of activity and functions. But 

 they are often not very dissimilar. A committee of the 

 one body may advise the Government on the constitution 

 of a new university ; a committee of the other may 

 equally advise it on the methods of obviating explosions 

 in mines. We may have a Privy Councillor discussing 

 at Burlington House Marine Signals or Colour Vision, 

 while a late president of the Society may be occupied at 

 Wtiitehall in determining whether the Eternity of Future 

 Punishment is a binding article of the English faith. 



But besides members of the Privy Council it has been 

 the custom time out of mind to elect into the Society 

 as ordinary fellows men of conspicuous public position 

 and merit, with the proviso, however, that they should in 

 their careers have shown themselves sympathetic to 

 science. Such elections, however, differ in toto from the 

 honorary and merely complimentary degrees conferred 

 by the Universities. Such men are brought into the 

 Society, first, in recognition of their services to science, 

 secondly, to confirm them in their interest in it, lastly, 

 that their cooperation may be secured in the performance 

 of the -Society's public work. The Society in order to 

 effectively accomplish that for which it exists must be in 

 touch with other fields of national life ; it requires and 

 turns to good account its connections with society, with 

 the legislature, with the bench, with Government adminis- 

 tration. By including in their number a body of distin- 

 guished public men, the Fellows of the Royal Society are 

 able to enormously enlarge their influence and to display 

 themselves as reasonable if hard-headed men of the 

 world, perfectly able to play their part in affairs which 

 concern them on equal terms with those who make the 

 conduct of affairs their only business and by no means as 

 mere recluses in a laboratory. Can any more effective 

 mode be imagined for removing from scientific men that 

 suspicion of impracticable pedantry with which men of 

 science are too often regarded by the uninformed 1 



In the face of these considerations which I had 



NO 1232, VOL. 48] 



thought were part of the well-known traditions of the 

 Society I confess that the hubbub of last Thursday 

 somewhat amazed me. It was fought over a man who 

 is preeminently of the kind that the Royal Society has 

 been always willing to coopt. A man of singular modesty 

 but vast learning, a scientific historian with the keenest 

 sympathy for science, a member of the legislature who 

 by his own unaided merit has acquired for himself a 

 conspicuous position amongst the statesmen of the day. 

 If the principle of the admissior^ of laymen is admitted 

 at all, who could be more suitable .' 



The simple fact is that there was nothing anomalous in 

 the matter. Any one who has taken part in the selection 

 of candidates by the Council will know that there is a 

 regular category for lay candidates presented on their 

 public form. The Council has to make up its list with due 

 regard to the claims of every branch of science. But 1 

 think I cannot be far wrong if I assert that in most recent 

 years it has been the practice to select on an average one 

 layman annually. There are at least a dozen in the 

 existing list and the obituary notices abound with them. 

 It is perhaps invidious to mention names but I may 

 single out of those living Sir Henry Barkly, Sir William 

 Jervois, Sir John Kirk, Sir George Nares, Sir Bernard 

 Samuelson, Sir George Verdon, Sir Charles Warren. 

 Any of these men would probably disclaim any pretension 

 to be considered a professional man of science. But 

 each and all of them has rendered great services to it, and 

 the recognition of this by the scientific world is the best 

 way to get other distinguished public men to imitate their 

 example. 



If I have discussed the question at some length it is 

 because it seems to me to be one of vital importance to 

 the welfare of the Society. But the dissentients took a 

 further step which if it were to become a precedent 

 would be absolutely disastrous. They not merely pro- 

 posed that one of the candidates selected by the Council 

 should be rejected but without consulting him proposed 

 that another whom the Council had not recommended 

 should be elected. It is true that in their first circular the 

 dissentients stated that the statutes of the Society left no 

 other course open to them. This however is an entire 

 mistake and I am afraid is rather characteristic of the 

 want of due consideration which characterised the whole 

 proceeding. 



It appears to me, putting other considerations aside, 

 unlikely that in so delicate a matter any five fellows can 

 arrive at a sounder conclusion than the twenty-one who 

 form the Council. Any fellow who has been a member 

 of that body must have been struck with the frankness 

 and impartiality with which the merits of the respective 

 candidates are weighed and discussed. And so large a 

 proportion of the Council is changed every year that it 

 would be practically impossible for it ever to come under 

 the control of any one party in the Society, if there be 

 such a thing. It appears to me therefore that all pre- 

 sumption is in favour of the judgment of the Council and 

 I think that experience has shown that in the vast majority 

 of cases it has been exercised wisely. 



It will be generally agreed that in no branch of science 

 can those who follow it arrive at a correct estimate of the 

 merits of those who work in other branches without the 

 responsible evidence of men with the necessary technical 



