246 Royal Irish Academy. 



still, as before, to occupy itself, not with Abstract Science 

 (which had been provided for in the Royal Irish Academy), but 

 only with Science in relation to its industrial or economic ap- 

 plications. The fact of some Papers not answering to this 

 description having been read at its Meetings in recent years 

 cannot affect the true character of the Society, or the correct 

 interpretation of its Charters and its history. At present, how- 

 ever, as we have reason to know, some of its most active 

 Members entertain the project of diverting it from the objects 

 which it was founded to promote, and embarking it in the 

 cultivation of Abstract Science. To enable it to alter its cha- 

 racter in this way a new Charter would be necessary. If such 

 a Charter should be sought, it will become the duty of the 

 Ptoyal Irish Academy, which was established by Eoyal Charter 

 for the cultivation of Science in the largest acceptation of the 

 word (as well as of other studies), and has fully and faithfully 

 discharged its duty in that field, to represent to the Government 

 the impolicy of public resources being used for the establishment 

 in a city like Dublin of a second Society, which would occupy 

 the same intellectual domain, and thus carry on an active com- 

 petition with the Royal Irish Academy ; whilst, on the other 

 hand, Ireland would be deprived of the valuable services in 

 relation to industrial subjects which are performed for England 

 by the Society of Arts, and have hitherto been rendered to this 

 country by the Royal Dublin Society. 



" But the point to which the Council desire at present to ask 

 the attention of the Government is a less general one, which, 

 however, requires more immediate notice. In Article 4 of the 

 terms of Agreement, lately entered into between the Government 

 and the Royal Dublin Society, it is stated that ' the Government 

 will authorize the Stationery Office to continue to print the 

 Proceedings and Tranmdions of the Society — limiting them 

 strictly to its scientific work — for a period of five years from the 

 date of the transfer of the collections referred to in preceding 

 Articles. We believe that the intention of the Government in 

 using the words ' limiting them strictly to its scientific work ' 

 was not to sanction indirectly an enlargement of the sphere of 

 the Society's operations, or the diversion of them into a new 



