THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



in the same field. Such an arrangement for duplicate, or 

 if necessary even multiple, publication would probably 

 determine many scientific workers to bring their best 

 results to the Royal Society, especially in the case of such 

 work which, as so often occurs at the present day, concerns 

 two or more branches of science. 



The special position of the Royal Society, as head of 

 the science of the nation, would thus be upheld without any 

 relinquishment by the specialised Societies of their full 

 autonomy, and indeed would be to their own advantage as 

 auxiliary and independent bodies. The importance to the 

 interests of the nation, as well as to the progress of science, 

 of the maintenance of one chief Royal Society, devoted to 

 all the sciences, is not less because of the co-existence with 

 it of Societies devoted to separate differentiated branches 

 of Natural Knowledge. Naturally, as consisting of the 

 most eminent workers in different departments of the 

 Mathematical, Physical, and Natural History sciences, 

 the Royal Society represents on all occasions British science, 

 both at home and abroad, and takes the place, as adviser to 

 the Government, and as its referee on all national scientific 

 questions; an adviser all the more trustworthy because 

 unendowed and independent of the Government of the 

 day. 



The suggestion which I have made does not provide 

 any remedy for one disadvantage which is inseparable from 

 a Royal Society, namely, that in consequence of the mixed 

 character of the papers usually read at a single sitting, a 



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