Although the number of situations to which persons conversant with science may hope to be appointed, is small, yet it has somewhat singularly happened, that instances of one individual, holding more than one such appointment, are frequent. Not to speak of those held by the late Dr. Young, we have at present:—
MR. POND—Astronomer Royal, Inspector of Chronometers, and Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac.
CAPTAIN SABINE—An officer of artillery on leave of absence from his regiment; Secretary of the Royal Society; and Scientific Adviser of the Admiralty.
MR. BRANDE—Clerk of the Irons at the Royal Mint; Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution; Analyser of Rough Nitre, &c. to the East-India Company; Lecturer on Materia Medica, Apothecaries' Hall; Superintending Chemical Operator at ditto; Lecturer on Chemistry at ditto; Editor of the Royal Institution Journal; and Foreign Secretary to the Royal Society.
One should be led to imagine, from these unions of scientific offices, either that science is too little paid, and that gentlemen cannot be found to execute the offices separately at the salaries offered; or else, that it is too well paid, since each requires such little attention, that almost any number can be executed by one person.
The Director of the Royal Observatory has a larger and better collection of instruments, and more assistants to superintend, than any other astronomer in the world; and, to do it properly, would require the almost undivided attention of a man in the vigour of youth. Nor would a superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, if he made a point of being acquainted with every thing connected with his subject, find his situation at all a sinecure. Slight as are the duties of the Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, it might have been supposed that Mr. Brande would scarcely, amongst his multifarious avocations, have found time even for them. But it may be a consolation to him to know, that from the progress the Society is making, those duties must become shortly, if they are not already, almost extinct.
Doubtless the President, in making that appointment, looked most anxiously over the list of the Royal Society. He doubtless knew that the Academics of Sweden, of Denmark, of Scotland, of Prussia, of Hanover, and of France, derived honour from the discoveries of their Secretaries;—that they prided themselves in the names of Berzelius, of Oersted, of Brewster, of Encke, of Gauss, and of Cuvier. Doubtless the President must have been ambitious that England should contribute to this galaxy of glory, that the Royal Society should restore the lost Pleiad [Pleiades, an assemblage of seven stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus. There are now only six of them visible to the naked eye.—HUTTON'S DICTIONARY—Art. Pleiades.] to the admiring science of Europe. But he could discover no kindred name amongst the ranks of his supporters, and forgot, for a moment, the interest of the Society, in an amiable consideration for the feelings of his surrounding friends. For had the President chosen a brighter star, the lustre of his other officers might have been overpowered by its splendour: but relieved from the pain of such a contrast, he may still retain the hope, that, by their united brightness, these suns of his little system shall yet afford sufficient light to be together visible to distant nations, as a faint NEBULA in the obscure horizon of English science.
Although the Society is not in a state approaching to poverty, it may be useful to offer a few remarks respecting the distribution of its money.
EXPENSE OF ENGRAVINGS FOR SIR E. HOME'S PAPERS.—The great expense of the engravings which adorn the volumes of the Philosophical Transactions, is not sufficiently known. That many of those engravings are quite essential for the papers they illustrate, and that those papers are fit for the Transactions, I do not doubt; but, some inquiry is necessary, when such large sums are expended. I shall endeavour, therefore, to approximate to the sum these engravings have cost the Royal Society.
Previous to 1810, there are upwards of seventy plates to papers of Sir E. Home's; in many of these, which I have purposely separated, the workmanship is not so minute as in the succeeding ones. Since 1810, there have occurred 187 plates attached to papers of the same author. Many of these have cost from twelve to twenty guineas each plate; but I shall take five pounds as the average cost of the first portion, and twelve as that of the latter. This would produce,
As this is only proposed as a rough approximation, let us omit the odd hundreds, and we have two thousand pounds expended in plates only on ONE branch of science, and for one person! Without calling in question the importance of the discoveries contained in those papers, it may be permitted to doubt whether such a large sum might not have been expended in a manner more beneficial to science. Not being myself conversant with those subjects, I can only form an opinion of the value from extraneous circumstances. Had their importance been at all equal to their number, I should have expected to have heard amongst the learned of other countries much more frequent mention of them than I have done, and even the Council of the Royal Society would scarcely have excluded from their Transactions one of those productions which they had paid for as a lecture.
It might also have been more delicate not to have placed on the Council so repeatedly a gentleman, for whose engravings they were annually expending, during the last twenty years, about an hundred pounds. On the other hand, when the Council lent Sir E. Home the whole of those valuable plates to take off impressions for his large work on Comparative Anatomy, of which they constitute almost the whole, it might have been as well not to have obliterated from each plate all indication of the source to which he was indebted for them.
THE PRESIDENT'S DISCOURSES.—I shall mention this circumstance, because it fell under my own observation.
Observing in the annual accounts a charge of 381L 5s. for the President's Speeches, I thought it right to inquire into the nature of this item. Happening to be on the Council the next year, I took an opportunity, at an early meeting of that Council, to ask publicly for an explanation of the following resolution, which stands in the Council-books for Dec. 21, 1828.
"Resolved, That 500 copies of the President's Discourses, about to be printed by Mr. Murray, be purchased by the Society, at the usual trade price."
The answer given to that question was, "THAT THE COUNCIL HAD AGREED TO PURCHASE THESE VOLUMES AT THAT PRICE, IN ORDER TO INDUCE MR. MURRAY TO PRINT THE PRESIDENT'S SPEECHES."
I remarked at the time that such an answer was quite unsatisfactory, as the following statement will prove.
The volume consists of 160 pages, or twenty sheets, and the following prices are very liberal:
Now upon the subject of the expense of printing, the Council could not plead ignorance. The Society are engaged in printing, and in paying printers' bills, too frequently to admit of such an excuse; and several of the individual members must have known, from their own private experience, that the cost of printing such a volume was widely different from that they were about to pay, as an inducement to a bookseller to print it on his own account. Here, then, was a sum of above two hundred pounds beyond what was necessary for the object, taken from the funds of the Royal Society; and for what purpose? Did the President and his officers ever condescend to explain this transaction to the Council; or were they expected, as a matter of course, to sanction any thing proposed to them? Could they have been so weak, or so obedient, as to order the payment of above three hundred and eighty pounds, to induce a bookseller to do what they might have done themselves for less than half the sum? Or did they wish to make Mr. Murray a present of two hundred pounds? If so, he must have had powerful friends in the Council, and it is fit the Society should know who they were; for they were not friends, either to its interests or to its honour.
The copies, so purchased, were ordered by the Council to be sold to members of the Society at 15s. each: (the trade price is 15s. 3d.) and out of the five hundred copies twenty-seven only have been sold: the remainder encumber our shelves. Thus, after four years, the Society are still losers of three hundred and sixty Pounds on this transaction.
ON THE CONVERSION OF THE GREENWICH OBSERVATIONS INTO PASTEBOARD.—Although the printing of these observations is not paid for out of the funds of the Royal Society, yet as the Council of that body are the visitors of the Royal Observatory, it may not be misplaced to introduce the subject here.
Some years since, a member of the Royal Society accidentally learned, that there was, at an old store-shop in Thames Street, a large quantity of the volumes of the Greenwich Observations on sale as waste paper. On making inquiry, he ascertained that there were two tons and a half to be disposed of, and that an equal quantity had already been sold, for the purpose of converting it into pasteboard. The vendor said he could get fourpence a pound for the whole, and that it made capital Bristol board. The fact was mentioned by a member of the Council of the Royal Society, and they thought it necessary to inquire into the circumstances.
Now, the Observations made at the Royal Observatory are printed with every regard to typographical luxury, with large margins, on thick paper, hotpressed, and with no sort of regard to economy. This magnificence is advocated by some who maintain, that the volumes ought to be worthy of a great nation; whilst others, seeing how little that nation spends on science, regret that the sums allotted to it should not be applied with the strictest economy. If the Astronomer Royal really has a right to these volumes, printed by the government at a large expense, it is, perhaps, the most extravagant mode which was ever yet invented of paying a public servant. When that right was given to him,—let us suppose somebody had suggested the impolicy of it, lest he should sell the costly volumes for waste paper,—who would have listened for one moment to such a supposition? He would have been told that it was impossible to suppose a person in that high and responsible situation, could be so indifferent to his own reputation.
A short time since, I applied to the President and Council of the Royal Society, for copies of the Greenwich Observations, which were necessary for an inquiry on which I was at that time engaged. Being naturally anxious to economize the small funds I can devote to science, the request appeared to me a reasonable one. It was, however, refused; and I was at the same time informed that the Observations could be purchased at the bookseller's. [This was a mistake; Mr. Murray has not copies of the Greenwich Observations prior to 1823.] When I consider that practical astronomy has not occupied a very prominent place in my pursuits, I feel disposed, on that ground, to acquiesce in the propriety of the refusal. This excuse can, however, be of no avail for similar refusals to other gentlemen, who applied nearly at the same time with myself, and whose time had been successfully devoted to the cultivation of that science. [M. Bessel, at the wish of the Royal Academy of Berlin, projected a plan for making a very extensive map of the heavens. Too vast for any individual to attempt, it was proposed that a portion should be executed by the astronomers of various countries, and invitations to this effect were widely circulated. One only of the divisions of this map was applied for by any English astronomer; and, after completing the portion of the map assigned to him, he undertook another, which had remained unprovided for. This gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Hussey, was one of the rejected applicants for the Greenwich Observations.]
There was, however, another ground on which I had weakly anticipated a different result;—but those who occupy official situations, rendered remarkable by the illustrious names of their predecessors, are placed in no enviable station; and, if their own acquirements are confessedly insufficient to keep up the high authority of their office, they must submit to the mortifications of their false position. I am sure, therefore, that the President and officers of the Royal Society must have sympathized MOST DEEPLY with me, when they felt it their duty to propose that the Society over which Newton once presided, should refuse so trifling an assistance to the unworthy possessor of the chair he once filled.
In reply to my application to the President and Council, to be allowed a copy of the Greenwich Observations, I was informed that, "The number of copies placed by government at the disposal of the Royal Society, was insufficient to supply the demands made on them by various learned bodies in Europe; and, consequently, they were unable, however great their inclination, to satisfy the wishes of individual applicants." Now I have spent some time in searching the numerous proceedings in the council-books of the Royal Society, and I believe the following is the real state of the case:—
In 1785, Lord Sidney, one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, wrote to the Council a letter, dated Whitehall, March 8, 1785, from which the following is extracted:—
"The King has been pleased to consent, that any copies of the Astronomical Observations, made at the Observatory of Greenwich, (and paid for by the Board of Ordnance, pursuant to His Majesty's command, of July 21, 1767,) which may at any time remain in the hands of the printer, shall, after you have reserved such copies as you may think proper as presents, be given to the said Nevil Maskelyne, in consideration of his trouble in the superintending the printing thereof. I am to signify His Majesty's pleasure, that you do, from time to time, give the necessary orders for that purpose, until His Majesty's further commands shall be communicated to you.
Soon after this letter, I find on the council-books:—
"Ordered, That sixty copies of the Greenwich Observations, last published, be retained as presents, and that the rest be delivered to the Astronomer Royal."
It is difficult to be sure of a negative fact, but in searching many volumes of the Proceedings of the Council, I have not discovered any revocation of this order, and I believe none exists. This is confirmed by the circumstance of the Council at the present day receiving precisely the same number of copies as their predecessors, and I believe that in fact they do not know the authority on which the right to those sixty rests.
Supposing this order unrevoked, it was clearly meant to be left to the discretion of the Council, to order such a number to be reserved, "from time to time," as the demands of science might require. When, therefore, they found that the number of sixty copies was insufficient, they ought to have directed the printer to send them a larger number; but when they found out the purpose to which the Astronomer Royal applied them, they ought immediately to have ordered nearly the whole impression, in order to prevent this destruction of public property. If, on the other hand, the above order is revoked, and we really have no right to more than sixty copies; then, on discovering the Observations in their progress towards pasteboard, it was the duty of the Council of the Royal Society, as visitors of the Royal Observatory, immediately to have represented to Government the evil of the arrangement, and to have suggested, that if the Astronomer Royal have the right, it would be expedient to commute it for a liberal compensation.
Whichever be the true view of the case, they have taken no steps on the subject; and I cannot help expressing my belief, that the President and Council were induced to be thus negligent of the interests of science, from the fear of interfering with the perquisites of the Astronomer Royal.
It is, however, but justice to observe, that the injury already done to science, by the conversion of these Observations into pasteboard, is not so great as the public might have feared. Mr. Pond, than whom no one can be supposed better acquainted with their value, and whose right to judge no man can question, has shown his own opinion to be, that his reputation will be best consulted by diminishing the extent of their circulation.
Before I quit the subject of the Royal Observatory, on which much might be said, I will just refer to the report by a Committee of the Royal Society that was made relative to it, some years since, and which, it is imagined, is a subject by no means grateful to the memory of any of the parties concerned in it. My object is to ascertain, whether any amendments have taken place in consequence. To one fact of considerable importance, I was myself a witness, when I was present officially at a visitation. At that time, no original observations made at the transit instrument were ever preserved. Had I not been an eye witness of the process of an observation, I should not have credited the fact.
At a period when the attention of Government to science had not undergone any marked change, a most unexpected occurrence took place. His Majesty intimated to the Royal Society, through his Secretary of State, his intention to found two gold medals, of the value of fifty guineas each, to be awarded annually by the Council of the Royal Society, according to the rules they were desired to frame for that purpose.
The following is the copy of Mr. Peel's letter:—
WHITEHALL, December 3d, 1825.
SIR,
I am commanded by the King to acquaint you, that His Majesty proposes to found two gold medals, of the value of fifty guineas each, to be awarded as honorary premiums, under the direction of the President and Council of the Royal Society, in such a manner as shall, by the excitement of competition among men of science, seem best calculated to promote the object for which the Royal Society was instituted.
His Majesty desires to receive from the President and Council of the Royal Society their opinion upon the subject generally of the regulations which it may be convenient to establish with regard to the appropriation of the medals; and I have, therefore, to request that you will make the necessary communication to the Council of the Royal Society, in order that His Majesty's wishes may be carried into effect.
I have the honour to be, &c. &c. (Signed) R. PEEL.
Nothing could be more important for the interests of science, than this gracious manifestation of His Majesty's concern for its advancement. It was hailed by all who were made acquainted with it, as the commencement of a new era, and the energies which it might have awakened were immense. The unfettered nature of the gift excited admiration, whilst the confidence reposed in the Council was calculated to have insured the wavering faith of any less-gifted body. Even those who, either from knowing the MANAGEMENT of the Society, or from other grounds, doubted the policy of establishing medals, saw much to admire in the tone and spirit in which they were offered.
The Council immediately came to the resolution of gratefully accepting them: and it appears that the President communicated that resolution, on the 26th, to Mr. Peel, in a letter, which is found on the minutes of the Council-book of the 26th of January.
At the same Council, the rules for the award of the Royal medals were decided upon; they were as follow:—
26th January, 1826.
RESOLVED,
That it is the opinion of the Council, that the medals be awarded for the most important discoveries or series of investigations, completed and made known to the Royal Society in the year preceding the day of their award.
That it is the opinion of the Council, that the presentation of the medals should not be limited to British subjects. And they propose, if it should be His Majesty's pleasure, that his effigy should form the obverse of the medal.
That two medals from the same die should be struck upon each foundation; one in gold, one in silver.
If these rules are not the wisest which might have been formed, yet they are tolerably explicit; and it might have been imagined that even a councillor of the Royal Society, prepared for office by the education of a pleader, could not have mystified his brethren so completely, as to have made them doubt on the point of time. The rules fixed precisely, that the discoveries or experiments rewarded, must be completed and made known to the Royal Society, within the YEAR PRECEDING THE DAY of the award.
Perhaps it might have been a proper mark of respect to this communication, to have convened a special general meeting of the Society, to have made known to the whole body the munificent endowment of their Patron: and when his approbation of the laws which were to govern the distribution of these medals had been intimated to the Council, such a course would have been in complete accordance with the wish expressed in Mr. Peel's letter, "TO EXCITE COMPETITION AMONGST MEN OF SCIENCE" by making them generally known.
Let us now examine the first award of these medals: it is recorded in the following words:—
November 16, 1826.
ONE of the medals of His Majesty's donation for the present year was awarded to John Dalton, Esq. President of the Philosophical and Literary Society, Manchester, for his development of the Atomic Theory, and his other important labours and discoveries in physical science.
The other medal for the present year was awarded to James Ivory, Esq. for his paper on Astronomical Refractions, published in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1823, and his other valuable papers on mathematical subjects.
The Copley medal was awarded to James South, Esq. for his observations of double stars, and his paper on the discordances between the sun's observed and computed right ascensions, published in the Transactions.
It is difficult to believe that the same Council, which, in January, formed the laws for the distribution of these medals, should meet together in November, and in direct violation of these laws, award them to two philosophers, one of whom had made, and fully established, his great discovery almost twenty years before; and the other of whom (to stultify themselves still more effectually) they expressly rewarded for a paper made known to them three years before.
Were the rules for the award of these medals read previous to their decision? Or were the obedient Council only used to register the edict of their President? Or were they mocked, as they have been in other instances, with the semblance of a free discussion?
Has it never occurred to gentlemen who have been thus situated, that although they have in truth had no part in the decision, yet the Society and the public will justly attribute a portion of the merit or demerit of their award, to those to whom that trust was confided?
Did no one member of the Council venture, with the most submissive deference, to suggest to the President, that the public eye would watch with interest this first decision on the Royal medals, and that it might perhaps be more discreet to adjudge them, for the first time, in accordance with the laws which had been made for their distribution? Or was public opinion then held in supreme contempt? Was it scouted, as I have myself heard it scouted, in the councils of the Royal Society?
Or was the President exempt, on this occasion, from the responsibility of dictating an award in direct violation of the faith which had been pledged to the Society and to the public? and, did the Council, intent on exercising a power so rarely committed to them; and, perhaps, urged by the near approach of their hour of dinner, dispense with the formality of reading the laws on which they were about to act?
Whatever may have been the cause, the result was most calamitous to the Society. Its decision was attacked on other grounds; for, with a strange neglect, the Council had taken no pains to make known, either to the Society, or to the public, the rules they had made for the adjudication of these medals.
The evils resulting from this decision were many. In the first place, it was most indecorous and ungrateful to treat with such neglect the rules which had been approved by our Royal Patron. In the next place, the medals themselves became almost worthless from this original taint: and they ceased to excite "competition amongst men of science," because no man could feel the least security that he should get them, even though his discoveries should fulfil all the conditions on which they were offered,
The great injury which accrued to science from this proceeding, induced me, in the succeeding session, when I found myself on the Council of the Royal Society, to endeavour to remove the stigma which rested on our character. Whether I took the best means to remedy the evil is now a matter of comparatively little consequence: had I found any serious disposition to set it right, I should readily have aided in any plans for doing that which I felt myself bound to attempt, even though I should stand alone, as I had the misfortune of doing on that occasion. [It is but justice to Mr. South, who was a member of that Council, to state, that the circumstance of his having had the Copley medal of the same year awarded to him, prevented him from taking any part in the discussion.]
The impression which the whole of that discussion made on my mind will never be effaced. Regarding the original rules formed for the distribution of the Royal medals, when approved by his Majesty, as equally binding in honour and in justice, I viewed the decision of the Council, which assigned those medals to Mr. Dalton and Mr. Ivory, as void, IPSO FACTO, on the ground that it was directly at variance with that part which CONFINES the medals to discoveries made known to the Society within ONE YEAR PREVIOUS TO THE DAY OF THEIR AWARD. I therefore moved the following resolutions:
"1st, That the award of the Royal medals, made on the 16th of November, 1826, being contrary to the conditions under which they were offered, is invalid.
"2dly, That the sum of fifty guineas each be presented to J. Dalton, Esq. and James Ivory, Esq. from the funds of the Society; and that letters be written to each of those gentlemen, expressing the hope of the Council that this, the only method which is open to them of honourably fulfilling their pledges, will be received by those gentlemen as a mark of the high sense entertained by the Council of the importance and value of their discoveries, which require not the aid of medals to convey their reputation to posterity, as amongst the greatest which distinguished the age in which they lived."
It may be curious to give the public a specimen of the reasoning employed in so select a body of philosophers as the Council of the Royal Society. It was contended, on the one hand, that although the award was SOMEWHAT IRREGULAR, yet nothing was more easy than to set it right. As the original rules for giving the medals were merely an order of the Council,—it would only be necessary to alter them, and then the award would agree perfectly with the laws. On the other hand, it was contended, that the original rules were unknown to the public and to the Society; and that, in fact, they were only known to the members of the Council and a few of their friends; and therefore the award was no breach of faith.
All comment on such reasoning is needless. That such propositions could not merely be offered, but could pass unreproved, is sufficient to show that the feelings of that body do not harmonize with those of the age; and furnishes some explanation why several of the most active members of the Royal Society have declined connecting their names with the Council as long as the present system of management is pursued.
The little interest taken by the body of the Society, either in its peculiar pursuits, or in the proceedings of the Council, and the little communication which exists between them, is an evil. Thus it happens that the deeds of the Council are rarely known to the body of the Society, and, indeed, scarcely extend beyond that small portion who frequent the weekly meetings. These pages will perhaps afford the first notice to the great majority of the Society of a breach of faith by their Council, which it is impossible to suppose a body, consisting of more than six hundred gentlemen, could have sanctioned.
An important distinction exists between scientific communications, which seems to have escaped the notice of the Councils of the Royal Society. They may contain discoveries of new principles,—of laws of nature hitherto unobserved; or they may consist of a register of observations of known phenomena, made under new circumstances, or in new and peculiar situations on the face of our planet. Both these species of additions to our knowledge are important; but their value and their rarity are very different in degree. To make and to repeat observations, even with those trifling alterations, which it is the fashion in our country (in the present day) to dignify with the name of discoveries, requires merely inflexible candour in recording precisely the facts which nature has presented, and a power of fixing the attention on the instruments employed, or phenomena examined,—a talent, which can be much improved by proper Instruction, and which is possessed by most persons of tolerable abilities and education.* To discover new principles, and to detect the undiscovered laws by which nature operates, is another and a higher task, and requires intellectual qualifications of a very different order: the labour of the one is like that of the computer of an almanac; the inquiries of the other resemble more the researches of the accomplished analyst, who has invented the formula: by which those computations are performed.
[*That the use even of the large astronomical instruments in a national observatory, does not require any very profound acquirements, is not an opinion which I should have put forth without authority. The Astronomer-Royal ought to be the best judge.
On the minutes of the Council of the Royal Society, for April 6, 1826, with reference to the Assistants necessary for the two mural circles, we find a letter from Mr. Pond on the subject, from which the following passage is extracted:
"But to carry on such investigations, I want indefatigable, hard-working, and above all, obedient drudges (for so I must call them, although they are drudges of a superior order), men who will be contented to pass half their day in using their hands and eyes in the mechanical act of observing, and the remainder of it in the dull process of calculation."]
Such being the distinction between the merits of these inquiries, some difference ought to exist in the nature of any rewards that may be proposed for their encouragement. The Royal Society have never marked this difference, and consequently those honorary medals which are given to observations, gain a value which is due to those that are given for discoveries; whilst these latter are diminished in their estimation by such an association.
I have stated this distinction, because I think it a just one; but the public would have little cause of complaint if this were the only ground of objection to the mode of appropriating the Society's medals. The first objection to be noticed, is the indistinct manner in which the object for which the medals are awarded is sometimes specified. A medal is given to A. B. "for his various papers."
There are cases, few perhaps in number, where such a reason may be admissible; but it is impossible not to perceive the weakness of those who judge these matters legibly written in the phrase, "and for his various other communications," which comes in as the frequent tail-piece to these awards. With a diffidence in their own powers, which might be more admired if it were more frequently expressed, the Council think to escape through this loop-hole, should the propriety of their judgment on the main point be called in question. Thus, even the discovery which made chemistry a science, has attached to it in their award this feeble appendage.
It has been objected to the Royal Society, that their medals have been too much confined to a certain set. When the Royal medals were added to their patronage, the past distribution of the Copley medals, furnished grounds to some of the journals to predict the future possessors of the new ones. I shall, doubtless, be told that the Council of the Royal Society are persons of such high feeling, that it is impossible to suppose their decision could be influenced by any personal motives. As I may not have had sufficient opportunities, during the short time I was a member of that Council, to enable me to form a fair estimate, I shall avail myself of the judgment of one, from whom no one will be inclined to appeal, who knew it long and intimately, and who expressed his opinion deliberately and solemnly.
The late Dr. Wollaston attached, as a condition to be observed in the distribution of the interest of his munificent gift of 2,000L. to the Royal Society, the following clause:—"And I hereby empower the said President, Council, and Fellows, after my decease, in furtherance of the above declared objects of the trust, to apply the said dividends to aid or reward any individual or individuals of any country, SAVING ONLY THAT NO PERSON BEING A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL FOR THE TIME BEING, SHALL RECEIVE OR PARTAKE OF SUCH REWARD."
Another improvement which might be suggested, is, that it is generally inexpedient to vote a medal until the paper which contains the discovery is at least read to the Society; perhaps even it might not be quite unreasonable to wish that it should have been printed, and consequently have been perused by some few of those who have to decide on its merits. These trifles have not always been attended to; and even so lately as the last year, they escaped the notice of the President and his Council. The Society was, however, indebted to the good sense of Mr. Faraday, who declined the proffered medal; and thus relieved us from one additional charge of precipitancy. [When this hasty adjudication was thus put a stop to, one of the members of the Council inquired, whether, as a Copley medal must by the will be annually given, some other person might not be found deserving of it. To which the Secretary replied, "We do not intend to give any this year." All further discussion was thus silenced.]
Perhaps, also, as the Council are on some occasions apt to be oblivious, it might be convenient that the President should read, previously to the award of any medals or to the decision of any other important subjects, the statutes relating to them. He might perhaps propitiate their attention to them, by stating, HOW MUCH IT IMPORTETH TO THE CONSISTENCY OF THE COUNCIL TO BE ACQUAINTED WITH THE LAWS ON WHICH THEY ARE ABOUT TO DECIDE.
If those who have been conversant with the internal management of the Council, would communicate their information, something curious might perhaps be learned respecting a few of these medals. Concerning those of which I have had good means of information, I shall merely state—of three of them—that whatever may have been the official reasons for their award, I had ample reasons to convince me of the following being the true causes:—
First.—A medal was given to A, at a peculiarly inappropriate time—BECAUSE HE HAD NOT HAD ONE BEFORE.
Second.—Subsequently a medal was given to B, in order TO DESTROY THE IMPRESSION WHICH THE AWARD OF THE MEDAL TO A HAD MADE ON THE PUBLIC THE PRECEDING YEAR.
Third.—A medal was given to C, "BECAUSE WE THINK HE HAS BEEN ILL USED."
I will now enter on an examination of one of their awards, which was peculiarly injudicious. I allude to that concerning the mode of rendering platina malleable. Respecting, as I did, the illustrious philosopher who invented the art, and who has left many other claims to the gratitude of mankind, I esteem it no disrespect to his memory to place that subject in its proper light.
An invention in science or in art, may justly be considered as possessing the rights of property in the highest degree. The lands we inherit from our fathers, were cultivated ere they were born, and yielded produce before they were cultivated. The products of genius are the actual creations of the individual; and, after yielding profit or honour to him, they remain the permanent endowments of the human race. If the institutions of our country, and the opinions of society, support us fully in the absolute disposal of our fields, of which we can, by the laws of nature, be only the transitory possessors, who shall justly restrict our discretion in the disposal of those richer possessions, the products of intellectual exertion?
Two courses are open to those individuals who are thus endowed with Nature's wealth. They may lock up in their own bosoms the mysteries they have penetrated, and by applying their knowledge to the production of some substance in demand in commerce, thus minister to the wants or comforts of their species, whilst they reap in pecuniary profit the legitimate reward of their exertions.
It is open to them, on the other hand, to disclose the secret they have torn from Nature, and by allowing mankind to participate with them, to claim at once that splendid reputation which is rarely refused to the inventors of valuable discoveries in the arts of life.
The two courses are rarely compatible, only indeed when the discoverer, having published his process, enters into equal competition with other manufacturers.
If an individual adopt the first of these courses, and retaining his secret, it perish with him, the world have no right to complain. During his life, they profited by his knowledge, and are better off than if the philosopher had not existed.
Monopolies, under the name of patents, have been devised to assist and reward those who have chosen the line of pecuniary profit. Honorary rewards and medals have been the feeble expressions of the sentiments of mankind towards those who have preferred the other course. But these have been, and should always be, kept completely distinct. [It is a condition with the Society of Arts, never to give a reward to any thing for which a patent has been, or is to be, taken out.]
Let us now consider the case of platina. A new process was discovered of rendering it malleable, and the mere circumstance of so large a quantity having been sent into the market, was a positive benefit, of no ordinary magnitude, to many of the arts. The discoverer of this valuable process selected that course for which no reasonable man could blame him; and from some circumstance, or perhaps from accident, he preserved no written record of the manipulations. Had Providence appointed for that disorder, which terminated too fatally, a more rapid career, all the knowledge he had acquired from the long attention he had devoted to the subject, would have been lost to mankind. The hand of a friend recorded the directions of the expiring philosopher, whose anxiety to render useful even his unfinished speculations, proves that the previous omission was most probably accidental.
Under such circumstances it was published to the world in the Transactions of the Royal Society. But what could induce that body to bestow on it their medal? To talk of adding lustre to the name of Wollaston by their medal, is to talk idly. They must have done it then as an example, as a stimulus to urge future inquiries in the career of discovery. But did they wish discoveries to be so endangered?
The discoveries of Professor Mitscherlick, of Berlin, had long been considered, by a few members of the Society, as having strong claims on one of its honorary rewards; but difficulties had arisen, from so few members of the Council having any knowledge of discoveries which had long been familiar to Europe. The Council were just on the point of doing justice to the merits of the Prussian philosopher, when it was suggested that its medal should be given to Dr. Wollaston, and they immediately altered their intention, and thus enabled themselves to reserve their medal to Professor Mitscherlick for another year; at which period, for aught they knew, his discoveries might possess the additional merit of having been made prior to the limit allowed by their regulations. That medal was, in fact, voted at a meeting, at which no one member present was at all conversant with the subjects rewarded. I shall, however, say no more on this subject. They erred from feeling, an error so very rare with them, that it might be pardoned even for its singularity.
I will, however, add one word to those whose censures have been unjustly dealt, to those who have reproached the philosopher for receiving pecuniary advantage from his inventions.
Amongst the many and varied contrivances for the demands of science, or the arts of life, with which we were enriched by the genius of Wollaston, was it too much to allow him to retain, during his fleeting career, one out of the multitude, to furnish that: pecuniary supply, without which, the man will want food for his body, and the philosopher be destitute of tools for his inventions? Had he been, as, from the rank he held in science, he certainly would have been in other kingdoms, rich in the honours his country could bestow, and receiving from her a reward in some measure commensurate with his deserts,—then, indeed, there might have been reason for that reproach; but I am convinced that, in such circumstances, the philosopher would have balanced, with no "niggard" hand, the claims of his country, and would have given to it, unreservedly, the produce of his powerful mind.