THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



large membership and the great activity of the many 

 specialised Societies to be convinced that the needful 

 freedom and room for their rapid growth and expansion 

 would have been altogether wanting in any plan of division 

 of the Royal Society itself into sections for the separate 

 study of distinct regions of natural phenomena. 



Especially in any such sectional sub-division of the 

 Society, the necessary room for freedom of action would 

 have been wanting in one direction of first importance, 

 which, perhaps more than any other, has contributed to 

 the rapid development and prosperity of the special 

 Societies, namely, the power which these Societies possess, 

 and which they have so largely used, of associating with 

 themselves freely the younger men working on the same 

 subject, who bring with them the enthusiastic energy and 

 the power of origination which are largely present in 

 youth ; men too young to have any claim to the member- 

 ship of an Academy, and whose admission in any number 

 to its different sections would necessarily take from its 

 select and exclusive character, and its distinctive position 

 as an Academy. 



In the Academic des Sciences, one of the five Academies 

 which together form the Institut de France, we have 

 before us an illustration of a sectional Academy. L'Aca- 

 demie des Sciences is divided into eleven sections, each 

 devoted to a separate branch of science. The total number 

 of members and correspondents, however, is less than half 

 that of the Fellows of the Royal Society. This sectional 



43 



