THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



heavier have been the sacrifices of time and energy which 

 the ever-increasing activity of the Society has called 

 for in the attendance on very frequent Council and 

 Committee Meetings.] 



At the time of the foundation of the Royal Society, and 

 for more than a generation following, the newly born 

 Natural Philosophy, in contradistinction to the syllogistic 

 philosophy of the schools or, in other words, the science 

 of natural knowledge promoted by experiment and in- 

 duction had not advanced beyond the most general stage. 

 The whole of our knowledge derived from direct observation 

 and experiment of what is upon and within the earth, and 

 of the heavens above, was then well within the fostering 

 and the publishing power of one Society. Geology was 

 not yet born. Electricity and Magnetism had advanced 

 but little beyond the simplest facts as first philosophically 

 arranged by Gilbert in the preceding century, the ter- 

 centenary of whose death occurs to-day. What then 

 passed for chemistry was little more than the gropings 

 of the alchemists, and the preparation of the simplest 

 medicines. The telescope and the microscope were only 

 just coming into use as instruments of discovery. 



Through the Society's own activity, as our knowledge 

 increased, and the number of workers in science became 

 greater by the successive differentiation of phenomena, 

 which is at the root of all progress, the inevitable specialisa- 

 tion of natural knowledge into distinct branches rapidly 

 advanced, until at last these specialised activities found 



