July 20, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



65 



tically downward, and the centrifugal force, 

 acting horizontally. . . . The resultant is 

 found by the parallelogram law. Its direc- 

 tion must be normal to the surface of the 

 liquid." Had this author, and our American 

 authors, been careful to draw the distinction 

 between applied and reactive forces, they could 

 not easily have fallen into the error of com- 

 bining an applied force with a reactive force 

 and obtaining — what kind of a force? What- 

 ever the kind, it can not be an applied force; 

 for if it were, it should, according to the 

 second law, produce an acceleration in its own 

 direction. But such an acceleration, as 

 pointed out by Dr. Fulcher, does not here 

 exist. 



There are many other fundamental ques- 

 tions in physics about the best method of pre- 

 sentation of which we are not agreed. Teach- 

 ers of college physics should welcome the 

 opportunity of discussing them, and by so 

 doing, clearing up their own ideas about 

 them. Perhaps, also a thoroughly satisfactory 

 test might thereby be evolved. 



Paul E. Klopsteg 

 xjnrtersitt of minnesota 



QUOTATIONS 



ROYAL SOCIETY FELLOWSHIPS 



A QUESTION of more than ordinary interest 

 and importance is involved in the opposition 

 of a majority of the Fellows of the Eoyal So- 

 ciety to a proposal of its council to amend the 

 statute of the society governing the election of 

 fellows. On June 7 a special general meeting 

 of the Eoyal Society was held, as the re- 

 sult of a petition to the council, to consider a 

 proposal by the latter embodied last year in 

 their report for 1916. It was to amend Statute 

 XII. by empowering the council to recommend 

 for election (a) privy councillors " whose elec- 

 tion would assist the work of the society " ; and 

 (&) " men distinguished in the scientific or 

 educational service of the state, or by their 

 services to science and its applications." The 

 opposition to this proposal, led by Sir David 

 Bruce and Sir E. Bay Lankester, had been 

 energetically whipped up among the unofficial 

 fellows since last November, and there was an 



unusually large attendance at the meeting. 

 The result was that a vote was taken, adverse 

 by a considerable majority to the council. The 

 following resolution was carried : " That this 

 meeting is of opinion that the council will 

 serve the best interests of the society by re- 

 storing Statute XII. to the form it had before 

 the change made in it by the council on No- 

 vember 2, 1916, and by postponing further con- 

 sideration of the statute relating to the election 

 of fellows until after the termination of the 

 war." The precise efiect of the action thus 

 taken by a majority of the fellows is for the 

 moment rather uncertain, and the position is a 

 somewhat embarrassing one for the president 

 and council, who have thus suffered an appar- 

 ent rebufl^. According to the constitution of 

 the Eoyal Society, the power of making and 

 amending its statutes resides solely in the 

 council, so that, strictly, the resolution is a 

 hruium fulmen. On the other hand, the actual 

 election of fellows rests with the society, and 

 the council can only recommend candidates. 

 So that the council is hardly likely to provoke 

 an unseemly opposition to candidates it might 

 recommend for election under the amended 

 statute — even if it declines to stultify itself by 

 " restoring " the status quo ante as suggested 

 — by flying in the face of the adverse vote. 



We understand that the president and coun- 

 cil were, in fact, quite ready to meet the oppo- 

 sition raised within the society so far as con- 

 cerns a postponement of any action on the 

 amended statute till after the war. And in the 

 comment we propose to make we can not, 

 partly for that reason, express our entire dis- 

 agreement with the opposition too strongly at 

 this juncture. At the same time we think it 

 desirable to say at once that we think the hos- 

 tility of so many fellows to a proposal intended 

 to increase the prestige and the value of the 

 Eoyal Society distinctly regrettable. It was 

 based, we are well aware — at any rate among 

 some of the more eminent fellows who led the 

 opposition — largely on suspicions of the intro- 

 duction of state patronage into scientific re- 

 search. But we have no doubt also that the 

 influence of " vested interests " in the existing 

 system of election to the coveted distinction of 



