The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have, like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized SOCIETIES, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries of similar branches of study--they do good by the more attainable communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to the public the fruits of their labour--they give an _esprit de corps_, which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the other hand, they do harm, by becoming the channels of selfish speculation, their honorary offices being used as stepping-stones to lucrative ones, thereby causing their influential members to please the givers of "situations," and to publish the trash of the impertinently ambitious, the _Titmice of the Credulous Societies_! The ultra-ridiculous parade with which they have decked fair science, giving her a vest of unmeaning hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing her to the finger of scorn, is another prominent and unsightly feature of such societies; they do harm by the cliquerie which they generate, collecting little knots of little men, no individual of whom can stand his own ground, but a group of whom, by leaning hard together, can, and do, exercise a most pernicious influence; seeking petty gain and class celebrity, they exert their joint-stock brains to convert science into pounds, shillings, and pence; and, when they have managed to poke one foot upon the ladder of notoriety, use the other to kick furiously at the poor aspirants who attempt to follow them.