i.] ANTECEDENTS. 23 



be brought before the councils of scientific 

 societies. There can be no doubt but that the 

 upper classes of a nation like our own, which 

 are largely and continually recruited by selec- 

 tions from below, are by far the most productive 

 of natural ability. The lower classes are, in 

 truth, the " residuum." 



Of the 6 clergymen or ministers who were 

 fathers of scientific men, no less than 4 ap- 

 pear in a second category, viz., (1) clergyman 

 and schoolmaster ; (2) physician, afterwards 

 clergyman ; (3) Unitarian minister and school- 

 master ; (4) professor of classics, afterwards an 

 Independent minister. Among the successful 

 graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, and among 

 purely literary men, we find a much larger 

 proportion of sons of clergymen. There is at 

 Cambridge a well-known university scholarship, 

 called the " Bell," which is open only to sons of 

 clergymen of the Church of England. As it has 

 been chiefly given for classical proficiency, we 

 may be almost sure that the senior classic of 

 his year, if he were the son of a clergyman, 

 would also be a Bell scholar. I looked through 



