Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/207

 Even in the few cases which have passed the limits of such forbearance, when the subject has been debated in the Council, more than one, more than two instances are known, where subsequent circumstances have occurred, which proved, with the most irresistible moral evidence, that members have spoken on one side of the question, and have voted on the contrary.

This reluctance to oppose that which is disapproved, has been too extensively and too fatally prevalent for the interests of the Royal Society. It may partly be attributed to that reserved and retiring disposition, which frequently marks the man of real knowledge, as strongly as an officious interference and flippant manner do the charlatan, or the trader in science. Some portion of it is due to that improper deference which was long paid to every dictum of the President, and much of it to that natural indisposition to take trouble on any point in which a man's own interest is not immediately concerned. It is to be hoped, for the credit of that learned body, that no anticipation of the next feast of St. Andrew ever influenced the taciturnity of their disposition.