Life of Co^^nt Rumford. 253 



the most distinguished of the now existing and flourish- 

 ing learned bodies of Christendom originated and were 

 organized under similar circumstances, in periods of 

 distraction and strife. The Royal Society of London 

 was an incorporation, in 1661, of a society of gentlemen 

 interested in scientific objects, who had been meeting for 

 many previous years to encourage and help one another 

 in their pursuits. It was amid the heated and alienat- 

 ing strifes of political and religious animosity inflaming 

 all classes of the people, that those who loved science 

 and high culture, and were within easy reach of inter- 

 course, gathered in a little coterie in London. They 

 realized that, if they would mutually tolerate and enjoy 

 each other's presence and sympathy in their professed 

 objects, they must carefully exclude all recognition of the 

 distractions outside of their fellowship. As one of the 

 foremost of them, Dr. Wallis, writing of the year 1645, 

 quaintly says of their coming together, "when (to avoid 

 diversion to other discourses, and for some other rea- 

 sons) we barred all discourses of divinity, state affairs, 

 and of news, other than what concerned our business of 

 Philosophy." The French National Institute, estab- 

 lished in 1796, offered a similar refuge from the embit- 

 terments of revolutionary times for those who could 

 subordinate their party or polemical divisions to a zeal 

 for researches and labors which would accrue to the 

 welfare of a common humanity. 



Count Rumford had been elected a Foreign Honor- 



D 



ary Member of the Academy on May 29, 1789. 



The first recognition which the Academy made to 

 Count Rumford of his purposed benefaction was through 

 the following letter, which I copy from the original on 

 the files. 



