408 



A nniversary Meeting. 



[Dec. l f 



those who have dropped from onr list. Some of these have fallen in a 

 plenitude of years, and in maturity of mind : others in that early stage 

 of youth where insight and imagination, as yet scarcely differentiated, 

 have both lent their aid to the first flights of thought. Which of these 

 classes we can best afford to spare is hard to say ; but whether it be 

 the one, or whether it be the other, it is certainly the case that the 

 number of those whom we have thus lost since our last anniversary has 

 been unusually great ; it has in fact reached a total of twenty-nine on 

 the home, and two on the foreign, list. Many of them find a place 

 among the obituary notices which appear from time to time in our 

 Proceedings ; but there are a few, of whom, from personal knowledge, 

 or from special interest in their works, I am led to make additional, 

 although passing, mention here. 



In looking over the list we are reminded in a striking manner of a 

 fundamental difference between the Royal Society and the Academies of 

 the Continent, a difference which may perhaps be the best described by 

 the term comprehensiveness. For, beside the class of Fellows selected, 

 in accordance with our recent legislation, from the members of the 

 Privy Council, it has always been our custom to gather into our ranks 

 not only men of eminence in science proper, and in subjects which border 

 on it, but also men of distinction in other paths of life, provided that 

 they have followed those paths on principles which are analogous to our 

 own, and which by no undue strain of the analogy may themselves be 

 called scientific. 



In illustration of this remark, I might point in the present list to the 

 man of letters, to the architect, to the politician, to those who have 

 honourably served in various departments of the public service, to the 

 man of wealth who has turned his large means to large-minded pur- 

 poses for the welfare of the people. And although the act of erasing 

 them from our list marks our loss, yet the fact of having once reck- 

 oned them among our number is in itself a gain, and must help to 

 enlist the sympathies of the world outside in our special function, 

 viz., the promotion of natural knowledge, while at the same time it 

 tends to enlarge our own. 



To mention briefly a few of these : in Sir James Matheson we have 

 lost a wealthy and enlightened member, who devoted much of his 

 time, his energy, and his means in promoting the welfare, both moral 

 and intellectual, of \he people among whom he made his home. 



In the Marquis of Tweeddale we have an instance, happily not sin- 

 gular, of one who, without any professional connexion with the subject, 

 contrived amidst the distractions of active service to lay the founda- 

 tions of a solid knowledge of one branch of science ; while in later 

 years he became an active collector and the author of valuable cnotri- 

 butions to the publications of the Geological Societies over which he 

 presided. 



