A History of Science — Volume 5

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

A SESSION OF THE SOCIETY

THERE is one scientific institution in London more venerable and more famous even than the British Museum. This, of course, is the Royal Society, a world-famous body, whose charter dates from 1662, but whose actual sessions began at Gresham College some twenty years earlier. One can best gain a present-day idea of this famous institution by attending one of its weekly meetings in Burlington House, Piccadilly—a great, castle-like structure, which serves also as the abode of the Royal Chemical Society and the Royal Academy of Arts. The formality of an invitation from a fellow is required, but this is easily secured by any scientific visitor who may desire to attend the meeting. The programme of the meeting each week appears in that other great British institution, the Times, on Tuesdays.

The weekly meeting itself is held on Thursday afternoon at half-past four. As one enters the door leading off the great court of Burlington House a liveried attendant motions one to the rack where great-coat and hat may be left, and without further ceremony one steps into the reception-room unannounced. It is a middle-sized, almost square room, pillared and formal in itself, and almost without furniture, save for a long temporary table on one side, over which cups of tea are being handed out to the guests, who cluster there to receive it, and then scatter about the room to sip it at their leisure. We had come to hear a lecture and had expected to be ushered into an auditorium; but we had quite forgotten that this is the hour when all England takes its tea, the élite of the scientific world, seemingly, quite as much as the devotees of another kind of society. Indeed, had we come unawares into this room we should never have suspected that we had about us other than an ordinary group of cultured people gathered at a conventional "tea," except, indeed, that suspicion might be aroused by the great preponderance of men—there being only three or four women present—and by the fact that here and there a guest appears in unconventional dress—a short coat or even a velvet working-jacket. For the rest there is the same gathering into clusters of three or four, the same inarticulate clatter of many voices that mark the most commonplace of gatherings.

But if one will withdraw to an inoffensive corner and take a critical view of the assembly, he will presently discover that many of the faces are familiar to him, although he supposed himself to be quite among strangers. The tall figure, with the beautiful, kindly face set in white hair and beard, has surely sat for the familiar portrait of Alfred Russel Wallace. This short, thick-set, robust, business-like figure is that of Sir Norman Lockyer. Yonder frail-seeming scholar, with white beard, is surely Professor Crookes. And this other scholar, with tall, rather angular frame and most kindly gleam of eye, is Sir Michael Foster; and there beyond is the large-seeming though not tall figure, and the round, rosy, youthful-seeming, beautifully benevolent face of Lord Lister. "What! a real lord there?" said a little American girl to whom I enumerated the company after my first visit to the Royal Society. "Then how did he act? Was he very proud and haughty, as if he could not speak to other people?" And I was happy to be able to reply that though Lord Lister, perhaps of all men living, would be most excusable did he carry in his manner the sense of his achievements and honors, yet in point of fact no man could conceivably be more free from any apparent self-consciousness. As one watches him now he is seen to pass from group to group with cordial hand-shake and pleasant word, clearly the most affable of men, lord though he be, and president of the Royal Society, and foremost scientist of his time.

Presently an attendant passed through the tearoom bearing a tremendous silver mace, perhaps five feet long, surmounted by a massive crown and cross, and looking like nothing so much as a "gigantic war-club." This is the mace which, when deposited on the president's desk in the lecture-room beyond, will signify that the society is in session. "It is the veritable mace," some one whispers at your elbow, "concerning which Cromwell gave his classical command to 'Remove that bauble.'" But since the mace was not made until 1663, some five years after Cromwell's death, this account may lack scientific accuracy. Be that as it may, this mace has held its own far more steadily than the fame of its alleged detractor, and its transportation through the tea-room is the only manner of announcement that the lecture is about to open in the hall beyond. Indeed, so inconspicuous is the proceeding, and so quietly do the members that choose to attend pass into the lecture-hall, leaving perhaps half the company engaged as before, that the "stranger "—as the non-member is here officially designated—might very readily fail to understand that the séance proper had begun. In any event, he cannot enter until permission has been formally voted by the society.

When he is allowed to enter he finds the meeting-room little different from the one he has left, except that it is provided with a sort of throne on a raised platform at one end and with cushioned benches for seats. On the throne, if one may so term it, sits Lord Lister, scarcely more than his head showing above what seems to be a great velvet cushion which surmounts his desk, at the base of which, in full view of the society, rests the mace, fixing the eye of the "stranger," as it is alleged to have fixed that of Cromwell aforetime, with a peculiar fascination. On a lower plane than the president, at his right and left, sit Sir Michael Foster and Professor Arthur William Rucker, the two permanent secretaries. At Sir Michael's right, and one stage nearer the audience, stands the lecturer, on the raised platform and behind the desk which extends clear across the front of the room. As it chances, the lecturer this afternoon is Professor Ehrlich, of Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main, who has been invited to deliver the Croonian lecture. He is speaking in German, and hence most of the fellows are assisting their ears by following the lecture in a printed translation, copies of which, in proof, were to be secured at the door.

The subject of the lecture is "Artificial Immunization from Disease." It is clear that the reader is followed with interested attention, which now and again gives rise to a subdued shuffle of applause.

The fact that the lecturer is speaking German serves perhaps to suggest even more vividly than might otherwise occur to one the contrast between this meeting and a meeting of the corresponding German society—the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Each is held in an old building of palatial cast and dimensions, of which Burlington House, here in Piccadilly, is much the older—dating from 1664—although its steam-heating and electric-lighting apparatus, when contrasted with the tile stoves and candles of the other, would not suggest this. For the rest, the rooms are not very dissimilar in general appearance, except for the platform and throne. But there the members of the society are shut off from the audience both by the physical barrier of the table and by the striking effect of their appearance in full dress, while here the fellows chiefly compose the audience, there being only a small company of "strangers" present, and these in no way to be distinguished by dress or location from the fellows themselves. It may be added that the custom of the French Academy of Sciences is intermediate between these two. There the visitors occupy seats apart, at the side of the beautiful hall, the main floor being reserved for members. But the members themselves are not otherwise distinguishable, and they come and go and converse together even during the reading of a paper almost as if this were a mere social gathering. As it is thus the least formal, the French meeting is also by far the most democratic of great scientific gatherings. Its doors are open to whoever may choose to enter. The number who avail themselves of this privilege is not large, but it includes, on occasions, men of varied social status and of diverse races and colors—none of whom, so far as I could ever discern, attracts the slightest attention.

At the German meeting, again, absolute silence reigns. No one thinks of leaving during the session, and to make any sound above a sigh would seem almost a sacrilege. But at the Royal Society an occasional auditor goes or comes, there are repeated audible signs of appreciation of the speaker's words, and at the close of the discourse there is vigorous and prolonged applause. There is also a debate, of the usual character, announced by the president, in which "strangers" are invited to participate, and to which the lecturer finally responds with a brief Nachwort, all of which is quite anomalous from the German or French stand-points. After that, however, the meeting is declared adjourned with as little formality in one case as in the others, and the fellows file leisurely out, while the attendant speedily removes the mace, in official token that the séance of the Royal Society is over.

THE LIBRARY AND READING-ROOM