Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/71

 the extent of its short-lived quackery; but the evil deeds of that institution will long remain in the impression they have contributed to confirm throughout Europe, of the character of our scientific establishments. It would be at once a judicious and a dignified course, if those lovers of science, who have been so grievously deceived in this Society, were to enrol upon the latest page of its history its highest claim to public approbation, and by signing its dissolution, offer the only atonement in their power to the insulted science of their country. As with a singular inversion of principle, the society contrived to render expulsion the highest honour it could confer; so it remains for it to exemplify, in suicide, the sublimest virtue of which it is capable.