18 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Arran to English soil; and we only retain the services which our 
townsman Mr G-eikie volunteers for our instruction, so long as the 
central forces of Jermyn Street suffer him to linger within the 
Scottish border. Others, who still reside in Scotland, not unnatu- 
rally seek a larger audience, and a more rapid publicity for their 
memoirs, by transmitting them to London. This is reasonable and 
inevitable. Yet a certain feeling of patriotism might still retain a 
portion of their labours for the Transactions of our Scottish Koyal 
Society. Indeed, it is remarkable that the centralization of which 
I have spoken seems to reside in London chiefly ; for we do not 
find much tendency in Scottish towns or universities (with a few 
honourable exceptions) to contribute to the literary and scientific 
wealth of our national metropolis. I believe that the original list of 
the Royal Society of 1783 includes more provincial members, at all 
events from the Universities, than we can reckon in 1862. Of all the 
changes which have befallen Scottish science during the last half 
century, that which I most deeply deplore, and at the same time won- 
der at, is the progressive decay of our once illustrious Geological 
School. Centralization may account for it in part, but not entirely. 
But I have allowed myself to be partly withdrawn from the enu- 
meration of the causes of change which have affected the business 
and functions of societies for the promotion of science and litera- 
ture. Another of these is the alteration of domestic habits in some 
important particulars. Most of the older societies commenced in 
Clubs^ which met at taverns, in conformity with the all but uni- 
versal usage of the period. The Philosophical Club,” whicli 
foreshadowed the Royal Society of London, met in 1649 at the 
Bull’s Head in Cheapside ; and the germ of the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh was a club meeting at Ranken’s Tavern. All this is 
past and gone. The Drydens, the Addisons, and the Johnsons of 
our day, hold forth no longer at “Will’s” or “The Mitre.” If 
a more domestic, we are certainly a less “ clubable” generation.* 
The effect tells even upon our literary and scientific undertak- 
ings. The clubs of modern London are rather institutions for the 
luxurious accommodation of individuals than for social intercourse ; 
and the attempt of Sir H. Davy and others to combine them 
systematically with literary conversation, in the case of the “ Athe- 
“ Boswell is a very clubable man.” Johnson, in Boswell's Life. 
