NATURE 



^57 



THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1874 



THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 



ON Thursday last the Fellows of the Linnean Society 

 met together in a general meeting, which had been 

 specially convened to consider the disputes which have 

 almost paralysed its work for the past two months. One 

 painful episode which arose out of these disputes has al- 

 ready been alluded to in these columns. This alone gave 

 importance to matters which otherwise it would have been 

 difficult to discuss with patience. But so serious a crisis 

 as the resignation of a president so distinguished as Mr. 

 Bentham brought together a larger meeting of the Fellows 

 than had probably ever assembled together before in the 

 history of the Society, and produced the very decided 

 feeling that at least the prospect of a settlement must be 

 reached before the meeting dispersed 



The result was, on the whole, a satisfactory one. After 

 a debate which lasted for about two hours, and in which 

 a considerable nuniber of Fellows took part, a motion 

 proposed by !\lajor-General Strachey was finally carried 

 with only three dissentients, to the effect that the Council 

 possessed the confidence of the Fellows, and that the 

 question of the disputed bye-laws should be referred to 

 some authoritative legal adjudicator, whose decision 

 should be regarded as final. 



Those who have had no opportunity of taking any part 

 in the proceedings will naturally wonder what can have 

 been the nature of the portentous questions which have so 

 violently disturbed so grave and staid a body as the 

 Linnean Society. So far as we can arrive at a clear 

 comprehension of the facts, they may be stated as 

 follows :— 



At the cominencement of the present year the charter 

 and bye-laws were out of print, and the Council having 

 determined to reprint them, before doing so made 

 and submitted to the Fellows a number of amend- 

 ments in them which appeared to be advisable. It is 

 necessary to explain that, by the constitution of the 

 Society the Council alone has the power to legislate, and 

 the general body of Fellows is only able to reject or ratify 

 what the Council has done. At the meeting on January 

 15, when the amendments in due course came before the 

 Fellows, the President was requested to put them to the 

 vote scriaitin, and not en. masse. This was primd facie 

 a reasonable request, and might, perhaps, have been ac- 

 ceded to without any great inconvenience. The President, 

 however, ruled against it, and his ruling may be defended 

 on two grounds. In the first place the custom of the 

 Society on other occasions appears to have been 

 in accordance with it, and as a general principle 

 it seems obvious that it would be inconvenient 

 for the Fellows to modify in detail a scheme which 

 the Council had presented to them as a whole. In 

 the second place, although the charter is a most difficult 

 instrument for a layman to interpret, it is held by those who 

 ought to be able to construe it, to require that the Coun- 

 cil's propositions should be accepted or rejected in their 

 entirety and without modification. The amendments were 

 accordingly put to the meeting en masse, and were carried 

 by the necessary majority of two-thirds. The minority 

 Vol. IX.— No. 228 



declared theinselves much aggrieved by the course that 

 had been taken. It is not easy, however, to appreciate their 

 objection ; for it is clear that to put all the amendments 

 en masse cannot facilitate their acceptance, but that, on 

 the contrary, it brings to bear collectively upon the whole 

 scheme all the objections which might be raised sepa- 

 rately to different parts of it. 



At the meeting in which the atnendments were carried, 

 only one of them was actually objected to. The effect of this 

 amendment was to enable the Council to pay a Fellow to 

 assist in editing the publications. The sum proposed was 

 not large, and it seems very desirable that the work should 

 be paid for, and not voluntary. It is quite obvious that 

 in the former case the secretaries would have no scruple 

 in criticising, if necessary, what was done, which might 

 easily seem an ungracious proceeding in the case of un- 

 paid labour. 



Subsequently, however, to the meeting, the minority dis- 

 covered that another amendment, removing the appoint- 

 ment of the Librarian from the general suffrages of the 

 Fellows to the Council, was repugnant to the provisions of 

 the charter. A competent legal authority has declared 

 that this is not the case ; nevertheless, certain of the Fel- 

 lows hold a contrary opinion, and regard the change as a 

 derogation from their privileges. 



We have already referred to what took place on Febru- 

 ary 5. Mr. Carruthers, who took the lead in the oppo- 

 sition, proposed to discuss the legality of the amendments, 

 and attempted to raise this question upon the confirma- 

 tion of the iTiinutes of the meeting at which they had been 

 carried. He and his supporters being in a majority in a very 

 thinly-attended meeting refused to acquiesce in the ruling 

 of the President against the regularity of this proceeding; 

 the meeting broke up in confusion, and Mr. Bentham 

 resigned the chair which he has occupied so long to 

 the great advantage of the Society. The difficulties of 

 the Society began like a slight and neglected iUness which 

 terminates fatally : before the general body of Fellows 

 had time to even realise the nature of the dispute it had 

 culminated in an event which it will never be possible to 

 look back upon except with the strongest regret. It was, 

 however, a matter for satisfaction that the Fellows assem- 

 bled last Thursday were anxious to efface this from 

 Mr. Eentham's recollection ; and Mr. Carruthers, whose 

 action was the immediate cause which led to the Presi- 

 dent's resignation, spoke with befitting dignity of the re- 

 gard he felt for Mr. Bentham's services to the Society and 

 to Science generally, and of his own extreme regret that 

 the course he had considered himself compelled to take 

 had led to such an untoward result. 



As to the points apparently in dispute it is diffi- 

 cult to estimate seriously the position of the dissidents 

 from the Council's action. It is objected that the person 

 employed as sub-editor ought not to be a Fellow, or ought 

 on accepting the position ipso faeto to cease to be one. 

 But where, it may be asked, can the Society expect to find, 

 except in its own ranks, anyone competent for the work .' 

 and why should there be any more scruple about em- 

 ploying a Fellow for such a purpose than there is in em- 

 ploying Fellows as printers and engravers ? 



As to the election of a Librarian, what arrangement 

 could be more objectionable than for the Society at large 

 to elect to an office of this kind ? How could testimonials 



