THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE STATE 



maintained alight the lamp of pure science, when it was 

 practically extinct in the national seats of learning.] 



It asks for no endowment from the State, for it could 

 not tolerate the control from without which follows the 

 acceptance of public money, nor permit of that inter- 

 ference with its internal affairs which, as is seen in some 

 foreign Academies, is associated with State endowment. 

 In one particular case, in which it can receive aid without 

 any loss of independence, the Society gratefully acknow- 

 ledges its indebtedness to the State. About 1780 the 

 Society received a communication from the Government 

 offering to provide apartments for the Society at Somerset 

 House ; these were exchanged, in 1857, f r rooms in old 

 Burlington House ; after its rebuilding, in 1873, the 

 Society moved into the apartments which it now occupies. 

 It should not be forgotten that nearly a century before 

 the opening of the British Museum, in 1759, the Royal 

 Society's Museum, or Repository as it was called, enjoyed 

 the prestige of being regarded as the most important 

 Museum in London, and must have been of great use to 

 men of science, and have aided materially in promoting 

 and disseminating the knowledge of natural history. 

 The apartments offered to the Society at Somerset House 

 were quite insufficient in capacity and in number to receive 

 the Society's Museum, and in consequence this collection, 

 which had been carefully maintained not only from the 

 scientific side, but also with reference to the commercial 



value and importance of the foreign objects received, 



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