Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/426

422 election to membership in it of Hoffmann, the famous physicist of Halle. In May, 1710, a quarto volume containing sixty treatises, twelve of them by Leibniz, was published. This indicated renewed life in the academy.

This year Leibniz was discredited by the king through the appointment over him of Minister von Printzen as president. This was done without consulting him and also without his knowledge, and as if to annoy him, a salary of seventy-five dollars was ordered paid to the heads of the four classes into which the members of the academy were then divided. These classes were physics, which included medicine and chemistry; mathematics and astronomy; the German language, to which the political and ecclesiastical history of Brandenburg especially were attached, and literature, a department whose members were also to consider methods for spreading the gospel among unbelievers. The government of the academy remained in the hands of a council formed by the heads of these classes with the addition of the fiscus, who was appointed by the king. Other members of the academy had no voice in its management. It was now decided that the sessions, which had been rather irregular, should henceforth be held on Thursday every week at 4, and that there should be a general meeting once a month, so that the whole work of the academy might be known to each one of its members. The public recognition of the academy was given on January 19, 1711, by the king himself. Leibniz excused his absence on the ground of ill