XI 
INTRODUCTION. 
T' HE Council of the Victokia Institute having* deemed it 
advisable to republish, in the first number of its Journal 
of Transactions , the Pamphlet which I ventured to issue in 
September, 1865 (in the first instance entirely upon my own 
responsibility), with the title “ Scientia Scientiarum : being 
some account of the Origin and Objects of the Victoria Insti- 
tute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain, by a Member;” 
but which was afterwards circulated by order of the Pro- 
visional Committee, and is referred to with commendation 
both in the Vice-President's Inaugural Address and in the 
President's Speech at the Inaugural Festival, on 24th May, 
1866 ; — it is now here reprinted (with the Preface and Post- 
script which were added to it upon the publication of the 
third thousand), as being thus connected with the history of 
the Society's foundation. 
The original Circular of 24th May, 1865, in which I roughly 
sketched the first idea of the Victoria Institute, and which is 
referred to in Scientia Scientiarum (p. 5), and in the Report 
of the Provisional Committee and Council (p. 40), will be 
found on p. 33; but the Circular of July, 1865 (No. 4), 
also referred to at the same places, has not been here repro- 
duced, because it contained the names of some gentlemen who, 
though they had at first generally approved of the formation 
of the Society, did not afterwards make formal application to 
be admitted as Members or Associates, when its objects had 
been agreed upon and made public. Circular No. 4 was 
originally issued by itself, to make these objects known; and 
it was also appended to the first two editions of the Scientia 
Scientiarum ; but it was omitfced from the third edition, pub- 
lished in February last, after the First List of the Foundation 
