16 Proceedings of the Boyal Society 
These, among others, are causes why men cannot now do the hard 
work of science in their collective capacity as associations. How 
rarely do we even see two philosophers (at least in this country) 
engaged in a common investigation ! 
One result of what has been stated is the breaking down of 
scientific communities into special aggregations or societies for 
the promotion, say, of astronomy, or geology, or chemistry, or even 
minuter subjects, such as microscopic anatomy, numismatics, or 
entomology. Such associations hear testimony to the difficulty, 
which increases year by year, of rendering the sciences intelligible 
and interesting, in respect of new discoveries, to the mass of even 
well-educated men. They are so far a protest against the utility 
of associations at all, since they tend to reduce the prosecution of 
science more and more to an individual affair. 
In communities less numerous and comprehensive than those of 
London or Paris, the difficulty is not less felt, though the means of 
meeting it (at least temporarily) are not so attainable. The largest 
provincial town or district cannot possibly maintain the group of 
associations which, even in London, may be said to enjoy a preca- 
rious intellectual subsistence. I do not mean to say, that more 
subordinate special associations are unadvisable, even in the pro- 
vinces ; on the contrary, I believe that they may do much good. 
But one may fairly deprecate the encouragement of a spirit of 
rivalry towards the larger and more national and permanent insti- 
tutions which already exist, such as the Eoyal Society may fairly 
claim to be. To maintain the character, for energy and stability, 
of one central Society, is in reality the common interest of all of 
that not very numerous body of persons who cultivate science for 
its own sake. Delightful and instructive meetings may advan- 
tageously be held by a local body of geologists or chemists, or 
naturalists; but such associations require immense vitality to 
be permanent. Practically, they fall into abeyance, in perhaps 
twenty or thirty years, or even less ; and if they have attempted 
to record their labours by publication, these publications having 
never attained more than a very limited circulation, become in- 
accessible and forgotten. The matured written results of those 
labours which properly form a subject of almost private discussion 
in minor societies, are best consigned for final preservation to the 
