430 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



is shown in the beginning of one of the most fanioiis in Europe — the 

 Academy of the Lynxes, founded in 1603. 



When the men of the Eenaseence came in contact with the free inquiiies 

 of the Greeks, unhampered by theology— when they woke up to the fact 

 that there were great sciences of nature, of external nature — astronomy, 

 geography, mechanics, geology, which were ignored in the schools for the 

 sake of theology, logic, and the Aristotelian metaphysic — these men, instead 

 of attempting to revolutionize the Universities, determined to found societies 

 for searchers into the physical sciences, which should not be bound to teach 

 the youth, or prepare them for professions, but rather to seek the new truths 

 of nature by experiment, by scientific observation, by research, and communi- 

 cate their results at meetings of what they very properly called an Academy 

 of Sciences. Their members were to be very few and select, their meetings 

 small, and not meant for the vulgar public : their results, if approved, 

 were to be printed in the Acts of the Academy, whose publication was one 

 of the main objects of the Society. Above all, they were not to be conjfined 

 to the learned men of one centre, such as Eome, or Florence, or Yenice, but 

 were to include among their Corresponding Members distinguished men from 

 any part of the world. They were to do what the old universities wovild 

 not or could not do. 



How essential this conception of the special fimction of an Academy wasi 

 and how it has lasted to the present day, you may see iu this city of Dublin, 

 where I have been asked, more than once, what place there was for a second 

 learned society beside the ancient and wealthy univei"sity, which counted 

 among its Fellows and Professors the foremost intellects of the country. 

 The Pioyal Academy and the Pioyal Dublin Society here, as others elsewhere, 

 propose to do work widely different from that of any university. Theii- 

 members are not compelled to teach, or to control the youths, or to 

 administer any particular policy, or train for any profession. So far as the 

 Academy is concerned, they are free to pursue the sciences in what way they 

 choose, and to eommrmicate theu- results in what form they may select. 



It may not be familiar to most of you that the first attempt to found 

 such a Society, and in imitation of the Pioyal Society of London, was made by 

 Archbishop Marsh, while he was Provost of Triuity College. He found the 

 care of 500 rowdy youths so irksome that he inaugurated, about 1700, a small 

 and learned society, of which the famous Sir William Petty was President, 

 and the papers written by its members— William Molyneux, Secretary; 

 St. George Ashe, and others — were communicated to the Eoyal Society. It 

 was not tiU 1731 that the Dublin Society began its splendid work, but one 

 of practical usefuMess, not of abstract scientific research. 



