3 6 4 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xx 



The following letter to Mr. Clodd, thanking him for the 

 new edition of Bates' Naturalist on the Amazons, helps to 

 remove a reproach sometimes brought against the Royal 

 Society, in that it ignored the claims of distinguished men 

 of Science to membership of the Society : — 



Hodeslea, Eastbourne, Dec. 9, 1892. 



My dear Mr. Clodd — Many thanks for the new edition of 

 " Bates." I was reading the Life last night with great interest; 

 some of the letters you have printed are admirable. 



Lyell is hit off to the life. I never read a more penetrating 

 character-sketch. Hooker's letter of advice is as sage as might 

 be expected from a man who practised what he preached about 

 as much as I have done. I shall find material for chaff the next 

 time my old friend and I meet. 



I think you are a little hard on the Trustees of the British 

 Museum, and especially on the Royal Society. The former are 

 hampered by the Treasury and the Civil Service regulations. If 

 a Bates turned up now I doubt if one could appoint him, how- 

 ever much one wished it, unless he would submit to some idiotic 

 examination. As to the Royal Society, I undertake to say that 

 Bates might have been elected fifteen years earlier if he had so 

 pleased. But the Council cannot elect a man unless he is pro- 

 posed, and I always understood that it was the res angusta 

 which stood in the way. 



It is the same with . (Twenty years ago) the Royal 



Society awarded him the Royal Medal, which is about as broad 

 an invitation to join us as we could well give a man. In fact, 

 I do not think he has behaved well in quite ignoring it. For- 

 merly there was a heavy entrance fee as well as the annual sub- 

 scription. But a dozen or fifteen years ago the more pecunious 

 Fellows raised a large sum of money for the purpose of abolish- 

 ing this barrier. At present a man has to pay only £3 a year 

 and no entrance. I believe the publications of the Society, 

 which he gets, will sell for more.* 



So you see it is not the fault of the Royal Society if anybody 

 who ought to be in keeps out on the score of means. — Ever yours 

 very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



* The " Fee Reduction Fund." as it is now called, enables the 

 Society to relieve a Fellow from the payment even of his annual fee, 

 so that being F.R.S. costs him nothing. 



