.

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.
SECTION 1.

OF THE NECESSITY THAT MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY SHOULD EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS.
One of the causes which has contributed to the success of the PARTY, is to be found in the great reluctance with which many of those whose names added lustre to the Society expressed their opinions, and the little firmness with which they maintained their objections.

How many times have those whose activity was additionally stimulated by their interest, proposed measures which a few words might have checked; whilst the names of those whose culpable silence thus permitted the project to be matured, were immediately afterwards cited by their grateful coadjutors, as having sanctioned that which in their hearts they knew to be a job.
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.