THE ROYAL SOCIETY. T HE annual meeting of the Royal Society
is an event of the first order in the scientific world, and St. Andrew's Day is therefore an occasion for the assemblage at Burlington House, and at the subsequent dinner, of all those who are most distinguished and honoured in that world. The occasion is indeed one that is of peculiar and high import to Englishmen, for it annually recalls to memory the great part that Englishmen have played in the overthrow of the empire of ignorance, and in the dis- covery and occupation of new spheres of thought and action. The occasion, too, annually reminds the world how little the sum of all that has resulted from thought and research is in comparison with the work yet to be done, and thus spurs men of science on to new glories of discovery that shall be worthy to rank with the labours of the past. We cannot sympathise with any feeling of regret that the work of the Royal Society should be restricted to the advancement and development of scientific thought, and should have no direct touch with the arts, or with history, philosophy, or philology. It seems to us both fitting and desirable that the work of the Royal Society, of the Royal Academy of Arts, and of the new British Academy should in each case be controlled, as it is controlled, by an independent Council that focuses its whole attention on subjects which are naturally allied, and is not liable to be torn asunder by the conflicting views of members whose ideals, standards, and aspirations belong to independent regions of mental interest. That the work of the three Academies necessarily overlaps is not really an argument in favour of one central Academy. The overlapping is due to the fact that there can be no discontinuity in the spheres of human activity, and the world will be the wiser for this, since those mysterious regions that connect art and science, science and philo- sophy, philosophy and art, will receive investigation, not from one body of specialists from one point of view, but of three bodies from three independent positions of thought and experiment. But in the main the functions of the three Academies are independent, and we are glad that the Royal Society still preserves as its essential characteristic that attitude of inquiry into the mysteries and possibilities of the physical universe which distinguished the coterie of thinkers who obtained the original charter in 1662, and who at that date had been meeting informally but regularly for some seventeen years. For more than two centuries and a half the Royal Society has accumulated, and there- fore has distributed, scientific knowledge, and it would have been unwise at a moment when the claims of science outstrip all other voices to have given to the Society new and doubtful duties that would certainly have hampered its present work, and would soon have lowered the very high standard of qualification for the coveted Fellowships of the Society.
The importance of the work done by the Royal Society cannot be exaggerated, and the value of this work is Jfl'L._ Ay enhanced when we remember that it is the result of voluntary effort, and owes nothing to Governmental sub- sidies. Something, it is true, it owes to the patronage of Kings and Peers, but we believe that the Royal personages who have done most for the Society have gained at least as much as they gave ; while it is perhaps right to recall the fact that the patronage of the Baronage is mitigated by the payment of an increased subscription. It is interesting, in these days when the virtue of State-help is sufficiently exploited at the expense of self-help, to observe the importance of the work of this ancient voluntary Societa to England as a nation and as a civilising force. Mr. Leonard Courtney certainly did not exaggerate the case when he stated that the Society seemed to him "redolent of English genius and most fitted to fulfil English fame." The labours undertaken by the Society at the request of the Government, or for the purpose of spurring on the Government, have during the last hundred years been incessant; and national interests, as represented by questions of shipping and navigation, questions of mining, questions as to the improvement of the conditions of life in certain Colonies by the banishment of malarial diseases—to name one or two among many national labours —have been materially forwarded: Moreover, the very fact that the Royal Society is an English Society is not only gratifying, but of material value. America feels that an Association created before the Separation belongs to her still, and its proceedings appeal, therefore, directly and naturally, to the whole English-speaking race. The Society, moreover, is not only free to the peoples that created it ; within certain limitations its medals and its Fellowships are open to the distinguished thinkers of the world. Thus the Royal Society includes within its charmed circle not only the select scientific thinkers of the Empire and the Union, but also the greatest of the outside savans of the world. Rudolph Virchow, who died in September last, well represented the great type of intellect with which we are familiar in the case of the foreign members. For eighteen years he had been a member, and in 1892 he was awarded the Copley medal, the greatest honour that the Society can bestow,—an honour which this year has been awarded to Lord Lister, who, it may be remembered, in 1901 represented the Society at the celebration in Berlin of Virchow's eightieth birth- day. The great repute in which the Royal Society is held in America and upon the Continent is perhaps shown most clearly by the fact that this voluntary and unsub- sidised Association of Scientific Thinkers is the Acting Academy of the International Association of Academies (founded in 1900), and is generally recognised as the leading Scientific Association in the world. Sir William Huggins did not go too far on Monday when he claimed for the Royal Society that "it stood alone and pre-eminent among the Academies and Scientific Societies of the world."
But if the Royal Society is a national asset of great importance, it is not less valuable as an instrument of civilisation. We need only refer to some of its recent efforts to receive assurance of this. The work of reading and publishing original scientific papers always goes on. It is the normal work of the Society. But in addition to this we find, among other work, that an Antarctic expedition has been promoted ; astronomical questions have received special attention; the Malaria Committee by its encourage- ment of researches in East and West Africa and in India has advanced scientific knowledge as to malarial infection by mosquitoes ; the eruptions in the West Indies led to the formation of an expedition for the observation of phenomena ; the Catalogue of Scientific Papers which has been in progress for forty years, a catalogue which is a necessity of all scientific advance, and is of the highest international use, is making steady progress. The publi- cation of this catalogue raises an issue of the highest importance. The Society has already, out of its accumu- lated funds, spent some £10,000 on this catalogue, and to complete the catalogues of papers published up to the end of the nineteenth century will cost about £12,000 more. Dr. Mond, whose generosity in scientific and artistic matters is well known, has promised to give half this sum, and Mr. Carnegie has promised £1,000. Doubtless the remaining sum required will easily be raised. This may be taken, therefore, to be an instance of money needed for scientific purposes and found. But for one such case there are numberless cases where the money is needed, is essential to some great discovery, to the solution of some intricate problem, and is not forthcoming. The National Physical Laboratory is almost dependent upon the liberality of the public for any measure of efficiency to which it may attain. This institution, carried on under the direction of an Executive Committee composed for the most part of Fellows of the Royal Society, could by volun- tary effort be made as efficient and profoundly useful as the Physikalisch-technische Reichsanstalt, of Berlin, which has so vastly influenced both science and industry in Germany. Here is one of many instances that might be named where the wealth of the generous millionaire may be poured out without scruple and without fear of disas- trous economic consequences. The giving of great gifts of money too often results in the slackening of individual effort and in the weakening of the moral fibre of the recipients. The entrusting of wealth to the Royal Society can have no such consequences, and whether in specific cases such as we have mentioned, or for the general objects of the Society, or in the supple- menting of the small annual grant which the Society distributes on behalf of the Government for the purpose of encouraging scientific research, it is certain to produce results valuable alike to the nation and the world. The wealthy man who places funds at the disposal of the Royal Society may live and die assured that the value of the results of such a trust will transcend his most lively hopes.
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