The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-24 00:00:00

this semi-fossilized state, the grossest violation of
statutes, charters, regulations, and by-laws, are per-
mitted with impunity. Times and dates being altered as
they have been—papers being tampered with in the way
we have stated—and papers being printed without the
sanction of the Council,—no anatomical or physiological
discovery is safe. We say anatomical and physiological,
because the more glaring outrages have occurred in these
departments. If a greater than Harvey were now to
arise, his labours and his reputation would not be safe in
the hands of the present officials of the Royal
Society. This is not mere assertion, but a
close induction from the proved facts. Of late
years, whenever any man has signalised himself
in these departments, some_ puppet has straightway
been fostered at Somerset House, to the defamation and

injury of the right man. Sir EVerard Home, the pur-
loiner and destroyer of John Hunter's papers, was-sup-
plied from the coffers of the society' with the funds for
appropriating the labour of his illustrious predecessor.
The expensive plates of his work on " Comparative
Anatomy," illustrating one hundred and nine papers in
the "Philosophical Transactions," were executed at the
cost of the society. Mr. Mayo, who attempted to deprive Sir
C. Bell of his just fame, was long suffered to be upon the
Council, than which a greater insult could not have been
offered to this distinguished man. More recently we-
have seen Mr. Newport set up and rewarded, it is
scarcely known for what, while the discoverer of the
reflax function has had his papers blackballed, which, to
his noble and independent spirit, was ostracism froiß the
society. Later still, Dr. Lee makes an anatomical 'dis-
covery, and, as if in obedience to some mysterious and
inevitable law of wrong, a non-discoverer is raised un to
usses and worry him in his career.
Evis of this magnitude cannot exist in one depart-
ment of science without being an indication of the
unwholesome polity pervading the whole. They are
so, in fact, at this time, when an event of the
highest importance is eng 'ging the attention of the sci-
entific world. We allude to the newly discovered planet.
It is now well known that our countryman, Mr. Adams, a
member of St. Jobn'sCollege, Cambridge, had first cal-
culated the existence and position of the new planet in
September, 1845, that he sent these calculations to Mr.
Airy, the Astronomer-Royal, and to Mr. Challis, of the
Observatory, Cambridge, in September and October
of that year. M. Le Verrier, a young French mathe-
matician, made, in June, 1846, a calculation which
yielded fewer of the elements of the discovery than
those obtained many months before by Mr. Adams, and
sent them 0 Mr. Galle, of the Observatory of Berlin.
Professor Airy does not seem to have looked at all:

Professor Challis looked and saw the planet twice in
August, yet did not publish the matter. But M. Galls,
though he had received M. Le Verrier's calculations
many months after Mr. Adams had sent his to Mr. Airy,
and though he did not see the planet until six weeks
after it had been twice seen by Mr. Challis, was able to
publish it first through the French Academy, and thus
to take from this country the glory of the discovery.*
While the French Academy was active, our Royal Society
was in its six months' sleep, or, in all probability, Mr.
Challis would have sent his observations to this the legi-
timate channel. In this way of the greatest things of the
age has been partially or wholly lost to us! The intellec-
tual triumph clearly belongs to Mr. Adams, with whom all
must profoundly sympathize. Oceanus would have been
his but for the slew and formal technicalities which sur-
round science in this country. He did even more than hi
Le Verrier, but Mr. Airy, our Astronomer-Royal, did
not turn his tube into the heavens so promptly as M.
Galle, the astronomer of Berlin ; Sir John Herschel was
not so vigorous and eloqUent as M. Arago ; and the
Royal Society has proved itself no match for
the activity of the French Academy, or rather
it has not appeared on the stage at all : otherwise the
genius of England would have been unequivocally before
that of France, we should have added Oceanus to
Uranus, and the name of Adams would have been
higher than that- of Le Verrier, or even of the elder
Herschel himself.

We put the question last week, " What will the Mar-
quis of Northampton do ?" When he was first elected
into the Society, in common with other Fellows, he
subscribed the obligation and promise to " observe the
statutes and orders of the Society " in his own person
when he arrived at the Presidential chair, it became his
especial duty " to execute," himself, or, " see to the exe-
cution of the statutes" by other persons. It can be
proved from the minutes of the society that he has him-
self infringed the statutes, and that during his Presidency
the statutes, orders, and royal regulations, have been ha-
bitually broken by those in authority under him. Will he
for the future observe and cause to be observed, the sta-
tute of the society in the letter and spirit ; will he do any-
thing to repair the wrongs which have been inflicted on
men of science by former irregularities, and we do not
scruple to say, illegalities ; and will he set himself in
conjunction with the Council, to bring its organisation into
a state fitted to lead and foster the science of this coun-
try as it at present exists ? Each of these points is of
the utmost importance. So long as irregularities are
permitted in the reading and printing of papers, in the
constitution of committees, and the awarding of medals—
so long no discovery made amongst us can be safe. Com-
mon justice, and the present and future character of the
Royal Society, imperatively require that the wrongs
already committed should, as far as possible, be repaired;
And last of all, activity, dicussit n, and permanency in
the weekly sittings of the Roy al Society, should be pro-
vided for. Unless a genuine reformation be set afoot,
unless the cold and formal aristocracy of science admits
some more generous elements than it at present possesses,
we may look to see diseovi ry after discovery lost to this
country, and the original workers amongst us soured
and disappointed, instead of cheered and honoured.
The Royal Society and its coteries have long acted the
Florentine part towards the scientific genius of Eegland.
This year they have, among other errors, lost a planet;
what they may lose next., ii they continue their career,
it is impossible to foresee. If this loss does not rouse
them, no arguments can do so. Dante dcsciibes, in the
" Inferno," the interviews between the ghosts of the

dead. What kind of meeting will that be between the
offanded shades of Newton, and 11:Alley, and Herschel,
and the administrators science of the present gene-
ration?