lB8o.] Scientific Progress of the Past Year. 9 
that early stage of youth where insight and imagination, as 
yet scarcely differentiated, have both lent their aid to the 
first flights of thought. 
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 “ com- 
prehensiveness.” 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 purposes 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 reckoned 
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 Mathe- 
son 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 the 
people among whom he made his home. 
In the Marquis of Tweeddale we have an instance, hap- 
pily not singular, of one who, without any professional 
connexion with the subject, contrived amidst the distractions 
of aCtive service to lay the foundations of a solid knowledge 
of one branch of science ; while in later years he became 
an aCtive collector and the author of valuable contributions 
to the publications of the Geological Societies over which 
he presided. 
In the category of men of cultivation and leisure, who 
have turned their attention with good purpose and success 
to scientific pursuits, we may fairly reckon our late Fellow 
John Waterhouse, of Halifax. 
Sir Thomas Larcom was one of a long series of distin- 
guished men who have been elected Fellows of the Royal 
