72 THE LIFE OF SIR JOSEPH BANKS 



philosophic men who continued to promote it was too 

 high for the thing to be crushed by premature dis- 

 approval. 1 



The session of 1783-4 was disturbed by a crisis in the 

 affairs of the Royal Society, the most momentous in its 

 history. 



The popularity of Sir Joseph Banks as President of the 

 Society had two sides to it. Occupying that distinguished 

 post, he was recognized as a worthy and most zealous 

 patron of Science, devoting his wealth and his energies 

 without stint to the welfare of the Society. All this was 

 very excellent and commendable. But, beside this, he 

 was a masterful man, of great sagacity, dealing with 

 matters in a rough-and-ready way ; indisposed to permit 

 the needless interference of side issues with great princi- 

 ples. Now, if this quality of strength is one that the 

 average Briton treasures above all, not the less is he 

 apprehensive of any tendency to dictatorship. And it 

 happened that, during the early years of his occupancy of 

 the Chair, there were to be found Fellows of the Society who 

 held that Sir Joseph was occasionally too self-assertive. 



One thing followed inevitably upon the accession of 

 Banks to the President's Chair. He determined to restore 

 the older restrictions as to candidature for membership. 

 He would have the Royal Society so far exclusive as to 

 forbid the admission of such gentlemen who seemed to 

 regard the distinction mainly as a step in personal 

 advancement. The men who sought to enter the Society 

 should be those who had distinguished themselves in 

 some one or other branch of Philosophy, and those of 



1 v. Gentleman's Magazine, and the newspapers, and Miss Banks's 

 Collection of Broadsides in the British Museum, for coloured pictures 

 and views, for 1 783-5 ; and much anecdotage on the topic. There is room 

 here for one story. At Constantinople, the people who saw a balloon 

 come down cried out with fear. " They were seized with inexpressible 

 horror, thinking it was the Prophet come down to punish them for their 

 sins ; and they fell prostrate on the ground." 



