[August 
486 Report on Scientific Societies . 
different, as conceived by Sir Benjamin Thompson (Count 
Rumford) and the other founders, from what it has actually 
turned out, and still more different from any such design as 
has above been mentioned. 
The objedt chiefly aimed at at present is the diffusion of 
scientific knowledge, which, if I mistake not, is also the 
avowed, and almost only, object of the London Institution. 
Perhaps it should be stated that, as far as Science is con- 
cerned, the beneficial effedts of this popularising tendency, 
chiefly promoted by the establishments under consideration, 
are not always unmixed with evil ; for, as was once remarked 
to me by a person whose name I need not recall to you, 
“ Popular lectures are more frequently intended to make 
people believe they understand Science than to make them 
actually understand it.” And if once a ledturer, instead of 
aiming to elevate and expand the minds of his hearers, con- 
tract the habit of narrowing Science itself to the degree of 
exiguity supposed to correspond to the general hearer’s intel- 
ledt, and thereby disfigure and debase it, Science frequently 
becomes with him, also in his capacity of inquirer, an objedf 
for show and exhibition, rather than for disinterested research 
and truthful exposition. 
In the proposals which I shall now submit I am chiefly 
guided by the following considerations, which I have already 
had occasion to state in print : — “ It is especially by encou- 
raging those who travel along some other than the beaten 
track of ordinary men of science that corporations repre- 
senting the interests of science might tend to promote it. 
... It is true that there are not many persons answering 
to this description to be found at any particular time [many 
more, however, than one naturally becomes aware of] . It 
is the exclusive glory of this country to have produced men 
like Davy and Faraday, for instance, for whom there would 
have been absolutely no room abroad to develope their 
talents ; yet a little less constancy on the part of Mr. Fara- 
day, if biographical notices inform us aright, would have 
deprived the world of a discoverer as unrivalled and prolific 
in his line as Newton was in his; and who knows but that 
the cold shade of negledt, the want of due encouragement 
extended to merit exhibited in some unusual way, may not be 
nipping every now and then some great discoverer in the bud ? 
- . . A German physician still living [and now heaped with 
useless glory] , who is now acknowledged to have been among 
the first to recognise one of the most important laws in 
natural philosophy, encountered so much annoyance and 
vexation whilst endeavouring to bring his discovery before 
