1850-60] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 
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of our Memoirs. In default of this it is not easy to see how the 
Royal Society could hope to enforce a claim to receive the best. 
Such claim was, however, definitely made, and made, moreover, by 
one who was both an astronomer and an ex-President of the Royal 
Society. In 1855, Lord Rosse presented a confidential memorandum 
to the Council on the expediency of enlarging their number. He 
said, “ In a Council so small it is impossible to secure representation 
of the leading scientific societies, and it is scarcely to be expected 
that under such circumstances they will continue to publish 
inferior papers while they send the best to our Transactions .” 
In case it should be suspected that we are here guilty of a breach 
of official confidence, we hasten to explain that the above extract 
is public property, having been printed by De Morgan in the 
Budget of Paradoxes nearly two generations ago. 
It is, as De Morgan pointed out, not quite easy to see what Lord 
Rosse meant when he spoke of the societies sending their best 
to the Royal Society, but the nature of his pretension is abundantly 
clear. Such a claim was, however, not supported by other astrono 
mers. The Philosophical Transactions for 1850-60 contain only 
four papers of an exclusively astronomical character, and it is quite 
certain that there was no general acquiescence in the idea that our 
Society should get only the second best. Lord Rosse himself, 
though he had been a Fellow from a date within a few years of its 
foundation, was not one of our ardent supporters. He only once 
served on the Council (in 1827), and, with one minor exception 
(in M.N., 14 ), never communicated any of his scientific memoirs 
to us for publication. 
A modus vivendi with the Royal Society has long since been 
tacitly agreed upon, and such a difference can never arise again. 
In fact now, owing to the great increase in the cost of 
printing, the question has become inverted, and in place of any 
jealousy between societies as to what they are asked to publish, 
they are only too glad to find other bodies who will in any part 
relieve them of an expensive duty. In 1850-60 the Monthly Notices 
cost about £120 per annum, now they cost nearly £1000. Thus we 
leave the Society full of energy and enthusiasm, eager for progress 
and alert for new knowledge. We now, looking back, can see that 
a splendid day was dawning, though the light was doubtless yet 
faint and carried hope only to those blessed with the keenest 
vision. New ideas were arising in every direction. Charles 
Darwin’s Origin of Species had just been published, and though 
to astronomers the notion of evolution, of slow change and develop 
ment through countless ages, was nothing new, and was to them an 
accepted factor in the history of the inorganic world, its courageous 
application to the organic world justified and supported their