272 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1861. in compliance with the recommendation of the Council, 

 a President had hitherto been chosen, that constituted a 

 departure from the course hitherto followed. It was no 

 longer ' our little honest Society,' as my husband had 

 called it in writing to Admiral Smyth ; and all its oldest 

 friends those who had made it what it was declared 

 against the innovation. The other party prevailed, and 

 on the election of Vice-Presidents after the President's 

 election, Mr. De Morgan was informed that his name was 

 on the list. His friends, when his intention to leave the 

 Council was made known, entreated him to remain, seve- 

 ral of them urging that his was the name which could be 

 least spared. But he believed that his resignation would 

 cause the smallest possible shock to the Society, while it 

 would be a protest against the unconstitutional tendencies 

 which he wished to arrest. In answer to the official an- 

 nouncement of his election as one of the Vice-Presidents, 

 he sent the following letter : 



41 Chalcot Villas, Adelaide Road, March 1, 1861. 



Letter on GENTLEMEN, I have received from Mr. Williams a notifica- 



Council. tion that I was elected a Vice-President of the Society at the 

 General Meeting of the 8th nit. This election, legally valid, is 

 morally defective in one essential particular. The appointment 

 of a voluntary officer must be a result of concert between the 

 choosers and the chosen. It is a matter of prudence, when a 

 new system is established by a contested election, that the first 

 should inquire of the second whether he will be willing to take 

 the office on the terms which the altered circumstances of the 

 case expressly or implicitly lay down. Failing such inquiry, 

 any election, however good in law, is but an offer ; and to the 

 offer I reply, in all good humour, first by thanks, secondly by 

 non-acceptance. 



Here I might close this communication ; but the regard^! 

 feel for the Society, in whose affairs I have taken part from 

 early manhood up to a time when old age is within signal 

 distance, impels me to explain myself farther. In placing before 

 you the ground of my retirement, I am fully satisfied that the 

 retirement itself, accompanied by reasons, will do the cause more 

 good than any services of mine have ever done yet, and vastly 



