Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/151

 i8<>o- 50-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 127 of our Memoirs. In default of this it is not easy to see how the Royal Society could hope to enforce a claim to receive the best. Such claim was, however, definitely made, and made, moreover, by one who was both an astronomer and an ex-President of the Royal Society. In 1855, Lord Rosse presented a confidential memorandum to the Council on the expediency of enlarging their number. He said, " In a Council so small it is impossible to secure representation of the leading scientific societies, and it is scarcely to be expected that under such circumstances they will continue to publish inferior papers while they send the best to our Transactions." In case it should be suspected that we are here guilty of a breach of official confidence, we hasten to explain that the above extract is public property, having been printed by De Morgan in the Budget of Paradoxes nearly two generations ago. It is, as De Morgan pointed out, not quite easy to see what Lord Rosse meant when he spoke of the societies sending their best to the Royal Society, but the nature of his pretension is abundantly clear. Such a claim was, however, not supported by other astrono- mers. The Philosophical Transactions for 1850-60 contain only four papers of an exclusively astronomical character, and it is quite certain that there was no general acquiescence in the idea that our Society should get only the second best. Lord Rosse himself, though he had been a Fellow from a date within a few years of its foundation, was not one of our ardent supporters. He only once served on the Council (in 1827), and, with one minor exception (in M.N., 14), never communicated any of his scientific memoirs to us for publication. A modus vivendi with the Royal Society has long since been tacitly agreed upon, and such a difference can never arise again. In fact now, owing to the great increase in the cost of printing, the question has become inverted, and in place of any jealousy between societies as to what they are asked to publish, they are only too glad to find other bodies who will in any part relieve them of an expensive duty. In 1850-60 the Monthly Notices cost about 120 per annum, now they cost nearly 1000. Thus we leave the Society full of energy and enthusiasm, eager for progress and alert for new knowledge. We now, looking back, can see that a splendid day was dawning, though the light was doubtless yet faint and carried hope only to those blessed with the keenest vision. New ideas were arising in every direction. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species had just been published, and though to astronomers the notion of evolution, of slow change and develop- ment through countless ages, was nothing new, and was to them an accepted factor in the history of the inorganic world, its courageous application to the organic world justified and supported their