TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



461 



Statistical Society is certainly not only to bring together those facts which are 

 calculated to illustrate the condition and prospects of society, but to show how, by 

 the scientific collocation and classification of facts, the student may draw results 

 and lessons of the highest importance, especially to the economist and politician. 

 The Statistical Society numbers now 746 members ; there is also an active Statistical 

 Society in Manchester, with 178 members, making in all 024 members. 1 Altogether 

 the Societies for the propagation of physical and mathematical sciences exhibit the 

 satisfactory increase of 49 per cent, in their membership. 



Physical and Mathematical Sciences. 



Another group of sciences which numbers many cultivators is that connected 

 with natural history. First among these is Anthropology, or the natural history 

 of mankind, for which a special society exists, with 462 members. There was 

 formerly an Ethnological Society of sufficient number, but that is now amalgamated 

 with the Anthropological. The Psychological Society, for the investigation of the 

 forces by which the human mechanism is directed, has 117 members. The biolo- 

 gical sciences are numerous, dealing as they do with all the phenomena manifested 

 by living matter. We have the Linnaean Society, devoted alike to botany and 

 zoology, with 668 members ; the Entomological, for the study of insect life, with 238 

 members. Most important, however, are the Royal Agricultural Society with 

 6,797 members, the Royal Horticultural Society with 2,398 members, the Royal 

 Botanic Society with 2,504 members, and the Royal Zoological Society with 3,350 

 members. Their aim doubtless is to unite science with practice, and thus in some 

 sense they must be said to belong to the group of applied science ; but in truth 

 their exhibitions and gardens are museums of the greatest value for the study of 

 the vegetable productions of the globe, and for the advancement of zoology and 

 animal physiology. 



1 There is also a Statistical and Social Enquiry Society of Ireland, but the num- 

 ber of members is not published. 



