Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/104

 86 HISTORY OF THE [1840-50 gradual improvement of routine. Results of remarkable thought, as well as those of remarkable toil, though not wanting, were not abounding as in the days of William Herschel and Laplace," whereas at the epoch of writing there was an actual plethora. The Council discerned the signs of their time correctly. Their concern was that Fellows did not show themselves active enough in sending in those minor communications necessary to keep alive interest at the meetings, which Monthly Notices were expressly designed to sift and then to preserve. The question is touched again in 1847.* " Notwithstanding the signs of activity at home and abroad, and while congratulating our members on the state of astronomical science and the share which this Society has taken in its progress, we may be permitted to remark that a little want of method and perseverance is to be regretted among some of our body. Several gentlemen possess instruments quite, or nearly, on a par with those of our public observatories, but the actual produce is scanty. It is probable that observations have frequently been made and registered, and even reduced, which have been kept back from a fear of shewing some inexpertness in the minutiae of practical astronomy. . . . The friendly advice and criticism of the Members of Council are always at the service of any Fellow, so far, at least, as that knowledge extends." On another occasion they point out a profitable field for zealous cultivators of astronomy in assist- ing the production of ephemerides of newly discovered planets and comets, for which up to then the Society was mostly indebted to Hind and Adams, or to communications from Schumacher. Some of the Fellows. One would be a poor judge of excellence of character who did not admire men like Baily, Sheepshanks, and De Morgan, to mention no others, and deliberately omitting those whom we now reckon more eminent as astronomers, for the way they guided and shaped the Society. De Morgan, it is true, has other signal claims to regard. His personal brilliance, his learning, at once extensive and minute, historical and modern, his hold on the best mathematics of the day, much in advance of his contemporaries, have made his name rather increase than diminish with the inter- vening decades. But in his relations to the Council it is his personal side that concern us, that master passion for principle which was more than any reward or success to him. It finds an interesting ex- pression in the memorial notice of William Frend, his father-in-law. Scientifically, Frend was c, bit of a paradoxer, a man who objected to negative quantities, and looked coldly even upon fractions ; but if anyone is interested in De Morgan's point of view, let him read that biography for the way he brings out the beauty and nobility of that simple, self-reliant, truthful character. Little
 * Memoirs, 16, 552.