under which I cannot march. Everybody who saw the three letters after my
name would infer certain things as to my mode of thought which would not be
true inference. It would take much space to explain this in full. I may
hereafter, perhaps, write a budget of collected results of the _a priori
philosophy_, the nibbling at the small end of omniscience, and the effect
it has had on common life, from the family parlor to the jury-box, from the
girls'-school to the vestry-meeting. There are in the Society those who
would, were there no others, prevent my criticism, be its conclusions true
or false, from having any basis; but they are in the minority.

There is no objection to be made to the principles of philosophy in vogue
at the Society, when they are stated as principles; but there is an
omniscience in daily practice which the principles repudiate. In like
manner, the most retaliatory Christians have a perfect form of round words
about behavior to those who injure them; none of them are as candid as a
little boy I knew, who, to his mother's admonition, You should love your
enemies, answered--Catch me at it!

Years ago, a change took place which would alone have {29} put a sufficient
difficulty in the way. The co-operative body got tired of getting funds
from and lending name to persons who had little or no science, and wanted
F.R.S. to be in every case a Fellow Really Scientific. Accordingly, the
number of yearly elections was limited to fifteen recommended by the
Council, unless the general body should choose to elect more; which it does
not do. The election is now a competitive examination: it is no longer--Are
you able and willing to promote natural knowledge; it is--Are you one of
the upper fifteen of those who make such claim. In the list of
candidates--a list rapidly growing in number--each year shows from thirty
to forty of those whom Newton and Boyle would have gladly welcomed as
fellow-laborers. And though the rejected of one year may be the accepted of
the next--or of the next but one, or but two, if self-respect will permit
the candidate to hang on--yet the time is clearly coming when many of those
who ought to be welcomed will be excluded for life, or else shelved at
last, when past work, with a scientific peerage. Coupled with this attempt
to create a kind of order of knighthood is an absurdity so glaring that it
should always be kept before the general eye. This distinction, this mark
set by science upon su