PREFA CЕ. IT will probably be expected, and not unreasonably, that some account should be given of the motives and circumstances which have called this work into existence;-and the Author readily avails himself of the privilege accorded by long custom to introduce here a few explanatory observations. Bishop Sprat's This is the more necessary as some readers will recall to mind three works already existing, each entitled, History of the Royal Society; and it might be considered that a fourth book on the subject was scarcely, if at all, required. But the most superficial examination of these Histories, will show how very deficient they are in information relating to the rise and progress of the Society. work, published in 1667, manifestly cannot be regarded as a history of the Society, seeing that the Institution had only just been organized when the book was written. It even fails to give us a satisfactory account of the origin, or the early proceedings of the Society; the author having laboured much more diligently to defend the Fellows from the attacks and criticism of Aristotelian philosophers, than with any other object: he tells us, indeed, VOL. I. b that "the objections and cavils of the detractors of so noble an Institution, did make it necessary for him to write of it, not in the way of a plain history, but as an apology." The next History of the Society, is that by Dr. Birch, in four quarto volumes, published in 1756. Here again, the work fails to redeem the promise of its Title, for although occupying so large a space, it breaks off at the year 1687, and treats only of the scientific proceedings of the Society, with a reproduction of many papers which were read at the Meetings, and printed in the Philosophical Transactions. The third publication, which was written by Dr. Thomson, appeared in 1812; and this again, although styled History of the Society, is, as the author states, "an attempt to elucidate the Philosophical Transactions:" in fact, the entire volume is filled with rapid sketches of the progress of science, and an analysis of the papers in the Transactions. It is thus evident that no work, marking the Society's progress from a period antecedent to its incorporation until our own time, exists; for it would be vain to seek in the above Histories for information respecting the endowments of the Society, or indeed any other fact connected with its civil history. The want of such a publication suggested itself very soon after my being appointed to the offices which I now hold, from the difficulty of replying to ques |