SIR WILLIAM THOMSON, President, in the Chair. The following Council were elected :— President. SIR WILLIAM THOMSON, KNT., LL.D. Honorary Vice-Presidents, having passed the Chair. Vice-Presidents. Rev. W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, D.D. | Principal Sir ALEX. GRANT, Bart. DAVID STEVENSON, Memb. In. C.E. DAVID MILNE HOME, LL.D. The Right Rev. Bishop COTTERILL. Sir C. WYVILLE THOMSON, LL.D. Monday, 3d December 1877. Principal Sir ALEXANDER GRANT, Bart., one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society, read the following Opening Address: GENTLEMEN, I find it recorded* that in the year 1662, which was the first year of the incorporation of the Royal Society of London, the celebrated mathematician, Robert Hooke, drew up "Proposals for the good of the Royal Society," the third article of which was as follows:-"That every member of the Society shall be equally obliged to promote the ends thereof by paying 528. yearly, and by doing some one duty that shall be charged on him by the Council once a year, or, if his occasions will not permit, to pay 52s. more per annum." This proposed salutary rule does not seem ever to have been enacted by the Royal Society of London, nor do I believe that any analogous article forms part of the statutes of this Society, and yet it is in accordance with the spirit of such a rule that I appear before you this evening. When the Council of this Society requested me, only four weeks ago, to open the ensuing session by addressing you, I at once, though perhaps imprudently, resolved to obey them, and to do "the one duty charged upon me by the Council." But in the meantime I have become more and more conscious of the fact, that probably no length of preparation would have enabled me to offer you an address worthy of this occasion and of my predecessors in this chair, and that it would be a simple impossibility to accomplish this within a few weeks at a period of the year when the distractions are so manifold that I can scarcely get a clear morning, not to speak of a clear day. I must therefore ask you to accept for the nonce some discourse on matters which are a very old story now. I know that the Royal Society is like those Athenians of whom it was said that they "spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing." Therefore, an idea to be suitable for the Royal Society ought to be brand new. But I shelter myself under the reflection, that the topic which has suggested itself to my mind for this evening is one which might perhaps always claim a certain welcome in this For I thought of whiling away the opening half-hour of our In Weld's History of the Royal Society, vol. i. p. 139. To this excellent history the following paper is much indebted. room. new session with some remarks upon our connection with him whom I cannot but regard as our lineal progenitor and virtual founder, Francis Bacon of Verulam. In the Harveian Society, I believe that there is an annual eulogy of the great discoverer of the circulation of the blood; and how often in medical societies has the opening address been given up to a panegyric of Hippocrates, the ancient father of medicine? In societies like this, whose main function is the promotion of experimental research, it can never be out of place to do honour to Lord Bacon, the august herald and prophet of modern science. I trust that you will concede me this proposition, and that you will excuse the introduction of a trite subject on the present occasion, and that you will bear with me if I repeat many things which are quite familiar to you. Principal Forbes, in an excellent address which he delivered in this place fifteen years ago, traces the origin of the Royal Society of London to the example of similar societies which sprang up in Italy during the 16th and 17th centuries, especially the Society of Lincei, or Lynx-eyed Ones. founded in 1604, of which Galileo was a member, and the Florentine Academy of Experiment ('del cimento'), founded in 1657. This view was, broadly speaking, correct; but I think that it ignores too much the forces working within England itself. During the 15th and 16th centuries there was carried out the most important revolution (except the introduction of Christianity) that ever occurred among the human race-namely, the overthrow of scholasticism, and the introduction into all departments of knowledge of the modern spirit of inquiry. This revolution was far greater and more important in its consequences than the downfall of any dynasty, or the destruction of any empire; greater and more important than the Renaissance and the Reformation which jointly led to it; far greater in its scope and results than the much-vaunted French Revolution, of which, to the present day, it seems so hard for France to reap the fruits. In contributing to this greatest of all changes, in ushering in the new era, Italy may claim to have played a glorious part. But the new spirit pervaded all Europe. Men of the new era seemed to spring up everywhere. Columbus in Spain, Copernicus and Kepler in Germany, Lionardo da Vinci and Galileo in Italy, Tycho Brahe in Denmark, Gassendi and Descartes in France, Harvey and Gilbert in England,-these and many more, as if inspired by some special impulse, had each started on a separate road of discovery. They each shone like separate lights, and their united effulgence created the new day. Countries, I think, as well as individuals, moved independently of one another. At all events, I think that England moved independently of Italy in respect of the formation of scientific societies. In the eighth volume of your "Transactions" there is a learned paper contributed by Professor Macvey Napier fifty-nine years ago, in which he collects from writers of the 17th century, evidences of the influence exercised by Lord Bacon's works, and of the high esteem in which they were held. Professor Napier's case is fully made out, and he not only establishes the general fact that Bacon made a deep impression on his own age and the succeeding times, but also he proves, in particular, the immediate and direct connection between Lord Bacon's writings and the foundation of the Royal Society. The original founders of the Royal Society had those writings continually in their thoughts. Bacon's splendid aspirations, clothed in some of the stateliest prose that the world has ever seen, had struck upon men's minds and filled them with enthusiasm. Bacon was not content with setting forth his views in the abstract, but in his New Atlantis he exhibited in concrete, but imaginary, form, the benefits which would result, and the state of things which would arise, when the new philosophy had been thoroughly welcomed, and experimental science had been thoroughly established among men. The chief feature in Bacon's undiscovered island of the fancy was "Solomon's House," in which the employments of the Fellows are described as follows:"We have twelve that sail into foreign countries, who bring in the books and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light. We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call Depredators. We have three that collect experiments of all mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery-men. We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call Pioneers or Miners. We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tablets, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call Compilers. We have three that bind themselves to looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge. These we call Dowrymen, or Benefactors. Then, after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three that take care, out of them, to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call Lamps. We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators. Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call Interpreters of Nature." Rawley, Lord Bacon's chaplain and literary executor, says in his preface to the New Atlantis, which was published in 1627, soon after Bacon's death-"This fable my lord devised, to the end that hee might exhibite therein a modell or description of a college, instituted for the interpreting of nature, and the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of men, under the name of 'Solomon's House, or the College of the Six Dayes' Works."" Bacon's imaginative conception, being so consonant as it was to the spirit of the age, took root and fructified in the minds of many of his countrymen, both those who were passing through the trying scenes of the civil war in England, and those who had accompanied Charles II. into his exile. The first attempt to realize the conception seems to have been made about nineteen years after Bacon's death, in the year 1645, by the formation in London of a scientific society called the "Philosophical College," which was also called the "Invisible College." Dr Wallis, in his autobiography, speaks of this society as consisting of "divers worthy persons, inquisitive into natural philosophy and other parts of human learning, and particularly of what hath been called the New Philosophy, or Experimental Philosophy." Several eminent Oxford men who were in London in 1645, owing to the interruption of university work caused by the civil wars, became members of the "Invisible College ;" and in 1649, returning to their Alma Mater, they founded the Philosophical Society of Oxford, which used to meet in the house of Dr Wilkins, then Warden of Wadham College, and afterwards Bishop of Chester, or in the apartments of the Hon. Robert Boyle, who was then residing in Oxford. |