PROCEEDINGS OF TIIE MEETING. 
39 
been productive of so many new and admirable observations, 
and which has been in no hands more fertile than his own ; 
and he will remember also, that the first accurate investigation 
of all the phenomena of diffraction, and the first complete ex¬ 
planation of them by the doctrine of undulations, was contained 
in a memoir produced by a similar competition*. The award of 
medals, indeed, is an honourable encouragement not altogether 
withheld from successful researches in British science. But the 
principle on which they are given is of a more vague and general 
nature. The objects of these rewards have never been so di¬ 
stinct as to give a direct stimulus to specific inquiries. I may 
add, without imputing any mercenary feelings to men of science, 
that where the inquiry involves expense, a sum of money instead 
of a medal would, perhaps, be found a more useful and operative 
offer. It is well known that the important improvements which 
have been made in Chronometers have arisen, both in France and 
England, directly out of the public rewards munificently offered 
by the British Parliament; and I see no reason why adequate 
and well devised premiums should not be efficacious in the sci¬ 
ences as well as in the arts. No man, however high may be his 
literary or scientific pretensions, disdains to receive a pecuniary 
remuneration for the labour which he employs in the composition 
of his works ; and there can be nothing derogatory to the cha¬ 
racter of a man of science in accepting a similar compensation 
for the successful exercise of his talents in researches especially 
which require an expenditure of money as well as time. 
“ Such, Gentlemen, are the provisions of the plan which we 
propose for your consideration; and you will perceive that the 
methods which it embraces are new in practice, though not in 
principle. How otherwise indeed, than by new methods, can 
we hope to exchange the present desultory and tardy progress 
of philosophy, for a more regular, energetic, and rapid advance¬ 
ment? There is a light in the distant horizon to which we have 
long eagerly looked, and complained that the current did not set 
us more quickly towards it; and the question now before you, 
Gentlemen, is no less than this: Whether you are satisfied still 
to float passively on the waters, or whether you will raise the 
sail, and ply the oar, and take the helm into your hands. The 
methods now proposed are new, and therefore cannot place us 
in collision with any other Society. It has never yet been seen 
in this country, that twenty Chemists for instance, or twenty 
Mineralogists, have met together, for the purpose of settling the 
* This Memoir, written by M. Fresnel, gained the physical prize proposed 
by the French Academy for u a general examination of the phenomena of the 
diffraction of light,” in 1819. 
