22 



FOUNDATION AND OBJECTS 



The greatest minds require to be urged by outward 

 impulses, and there is no impulse more powerful than 

 that which is exercised by publicly esteemed bodies 

 of men. Even Newton's papers might have remained 

 unfinished, but for the incentive of such a solicita- 

 tion. In a letter which I have lately received from 

 Mr. Conybeare, and in which he expresses a deep 

 regret at finding himself unexpectedly prevented 

 from attending this meeting, the benefit in these 

 respects which may be looked for from a general 

 scientific combination is described with the energy 

 of his ardent and comprehensive genius. " Your 

 proposal/' he says, " for ingrafting on the annual 

 reunion of scientific men, a system of effecting such a 

 concentration of the talent of the country as might 

 tend more effectually to consolidate and combine its 

 scattered powers, to direct its investigations to the 

 points which an extensive survey thus generalised 

 would indicate as the most important benefited 

 by all the aids which the union of powerful minds, 

 the enlarged comparison of different views, and a 

 general system of intellectual co-operation could not 

 fail to afford, fills me with visions too extensive 

 almost to allow me to write with sufficient calmness 

 of approbation. The combined advantages, including 

 at once the most powerful stimulus and the most 

 efficient guidance of scientific research, which might 

 emanate from such a point of central union seem to 

 me to be beyond calculation. If views like those you 

 have sketched could be realised, they would almost 

 give a local habitation and a name to the philo- 

 sophical academy of Bacon's Atlantis, when ' divers 

 meetings and consults ' of the united body of Depre- 

 dators, Compilers, Pioneers, etc., suggested new 

 experiments of a higher light and more penetrating 



