In this way a select body of scientists were enabled to pursue their investigations without being obliged to "give thought to the morrow" for their sustenance.

In return they were to furnish the meetings with scientific memoirs, and once a year give an account of the work they were engaged upon.

Thus a certain number of the brightest minds were encouraged to devote their entire time to scientific research, "delivered alike from the temptations of wealth or the embarrassments of poverty." That such a plan works well is amply attested by the results emanating from the French academy.

Pensionnaires in various branches of science, however, either paid by the state or by learned societies, are no longer confined to France.
Among the other early scientific societies was the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St.Petersburg, projected by Peter the Great, and established by his widow, Catharine I., in 1725; and also the Royal Swedish Academy, incorporated in 1781, and counting among its early members such men as the celebrated Linnaeus.

But after the first impulse had resulted in a few learned societies, their manifest advantage was so evident that additional numbers increased rapidly, until at present almost every branch of every science is represented by more or less important bodies; and these are, individually and collectively, adding to knowledge and stimulating interest in the many fields of science, thus vindicating Lord Bacon's asseverations that knowledge could be satisfactorily promulgated in this manner.
X.THE SUCCESSORS OF GALILEO IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE We have now to witness the diversified efforts of a company of men who, working for the most part independently, greatly added to the data of the physical sciences--such men as Boyle, Huygens, Von Gericke, and Hooke.