THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



cal forces play a large part has made strongly felt the 

 need of a new and more specialised society for the 

 study and promotion of Electro-chemistry. The newly 

 formed Society of Electro-chemists has taken the title 

 itself an omen for good of the Faraday Society. 



This recent recognition of the need of a further differ- 

 entiation of chemical science, which is called for by the 

 remarkable activity, at the present time, of workers in 

 chemical and electrical physics, suggests to me that the 

 present occasion would be an opportune one to consider a 

 little carefully a subject which has been more or less before 

 our Fellows during the last hundred years, but at no time 

 has been more strongly present than it is to-day in the 

 minds of some of the Fellows upon whom more directly 

 falls the responsibility of the administration of the Society. 



The matter is one which concerns so directly the advance 

 of science in this country, that it cannot be regarded as even 

 primarily a question of the internal organisation of the 

 Royal Society. If further justification were needed for 

 speaking of the subject on this occasion, I have but to 

 quote the recently published words of one of our Fellows : 



" The progressive specialisation and differentiation of 

 Learned Societies is known to every student of history, and 

 it remains a grave question how long National Academies 

 and Royal Societies can maintain their old lines of publi- 

 cation and of constitution." That is, as he proceeds to 

 argue, can maintain their high position of distinction and 

 of influence, without some reform in the direction of the 



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