21 
of Edinburgh^ Session 1862 - 63 . 
more than double the list by including those who, though not ab- 
solutely regularly, attended so frequently that their faces were 
familiar in this room, and their ‘presence missed in the social 
gathering round the tea-table later in the evening. 
I fear, gentlemen, that we now-a-days allow ourselves to become 
too mechanically intellectual, and also too intellectually fastidious. 
If the recent movement which has been set on foot for deepening 
and enlarging the interest felt by the members in our meetings is 
to take any root and produce any results, I am persuaded that it 
must be, though not solely, yet mainly by our Fellows recollecting 
that though the meetings of the Koyal Society are intended for 
the communication of knowledge by the reading of papers, they 
always were, and still are, intended quite as much to promote a cor- 
dial feeling amongst those (at best but a small number in the 
midst of a teeming and busy population) who profess an interest in 
the progress of literature and science, and whose presence and con- 
versation may contribute to this end, as well as the more formal 
contributions of others. I ask the more numerous portion of our 
Associates, if they are not disposed to contribute papers to our 
meetings, at least to make a contribution of themselves — their per- 
sonal attendance, their approving interest, their mite of influence 
towards our commonwealth of letters. We have seen how much 
popular lectures have done elsewhere towards individual improve- 
ment, and the increase of a certain kind of knowledge amongst 
various classes ; we have attributed a still wider and more beneficial 
influence to the periodical literature of the day ; but neither of 
these is a social form of scientific and literary effort. It is that 
which we claim as one of the two remaining (perhaps only perma- 
nent) functions of our great Societies planted in different times from 
the present ; the one is to afford to authors, especially to the 
authors of learned dissertations on science, the means (otherwise 
wholly unattainable) of bringing their labours in a printed form 
before the scientific public ; the other function is to encourage, by an 
expression of personal sympathy and interest, the labours of those 
who devote themselves to the too often ungrateful toil of original 
investigation.* To the utility of the first, our Transactions bear, I 
^ To the two permanent functions of scientific associations mentioned in 
tlie text — namely, the printing and circulation of memoirs, and the promo- 
