52 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1831-32. which it was founded, and to which it adhered through- 

 out. 



Aims of the * At its commencement the Society determined with 

 obvious prudence to avoid the great subjects of religion 

 and government, on which it was impossible to touch 

 without provoking angry discussion. At a time when 

 the spirit which produced the effects of 1828, 1829, and 

 1832, was struggling with those who, not very long 

 before, had tried to subdue it by force ; when religious 

 disqualification and political exclusion occupied the daily 

 attention of the press, and when the friends of education 

 were themselves divided on the best way of adjusting these 

 and other matters of legislation, any interference with 

 theology or politics would have endangered the existence 

 of a union which demanded the most cordial co-operation 

 from all who wished well to the cause. That the Society 

 took an appearance of political colour from the fact that 

 almost all its original supporters were of one party in 

 politics, is true ; but it is as true that if the committee 

 had waited to commence operations until both parties had 

 been ready to act together the work would have been yet 

 to begin, and the good which so many of the Society's 

 old opponents admit that it has done would have been 

 left undone. But the committee remember with great 

 satisfaction that this impossibility of combining different 

 views in support of a great object extended only to 

 politics. From the commencement the Society consisted 

 of men of almost every religious persuasion. The harmony 

 in which they have worked together is sufficient proof 

 that there is nothing in difference of doctrinal creed 

 which need prevent successful association when the object 

 is good and the points of dispute are avoided.' 



Tracts. Mr. De Morgan, who became a member of the com- 



mittee in the year 1843, was from the first a very large 

 contributor to its publications. His work ' The Differ- 

 ential and Integral Calculus' formed a portion of the 

 series of tracts. The long list of articles in the f Penny 



