434 
Proceedings of the Asiatic Societg. 
[No. 4, 
disposal of the Society’s present house, which, for the following 
reasons, the Council would submit, may with justice be left in the 
hands of the Society, and not be transferred to the Government in 
return for the accommodation offered in juxta-position with the new 
Museum. The Council has nothing further from its intentions than 
to enter into negotiations with the Government on this subject in 
anything approaching a spirit of self-aggrandisement or of barter. 
The object which the Government and the Society alike have in view 
in this matter is the furtherance of Science and of true knowledge, 
and there is no room for the intrusion of any questionable motive on 
either side. But the Council feels strongly the great value, not only 
in a scientific sense, but in a pecuniary sense also, of the collections 
which it offers to hand over to the new Museum. These collections 
have been brought together after long years of patient labour, and at 
great expense to the Society ; and the Council rejoices that the So¬ 
ciety has so bestowed its means, and that it is now placed in a posi¬ 
tion to give still greater effect to its past work by bestowing its 
Museum on an Institution which promises to fulfil all its aspirations 
in this direction. And having this feeling, the Council thinks that 
it may fairly and frankly suggest to the Government that, in return 
for the very extensive collections thus to be presented to the public 
by the Society—collections of which the money value must be esti¬ 
mated at many thousand pounds—the State might, without for a 
moment considering that it conferred a favour in so doing, provide 
the Society with the accommodation it would need near the new 
Museum, and leave to the Society the disposal of its existing house, 
for the purpose of reinforcing the very restricted pecuniary means 
now at its disposal. If proof be needed that these means will in the 
future be well applied, the Council is satisfied that it will be com¬ 
pletely given in the past history of the Society; and it appeals 
confidently to the manner in which the Society’s Museum has 
been got together, and to the present proposals regarding its future 
disposal, to show the spirit in which the Society may be expected 
to perform its functions. The objects of the Society will be, as they 
ever have been, the advancement of knowledge. But from the very 
nature of the case, the numbers of the Society being small, and the 
contributions of its Members limited, the want of pecuniary means 
has always greatly restricted the sphere of the Society’s usefulness, 
