The reformers of modern times were less energetic in the measures they recommended. Dr. Wollaston and some others thought the limitation of the numbers of the Society to be the most essential point, and 400 was suggested as a proper number to be recommended, in case a limitation should be ultimately resolved upon. I confess, such a limit did not appear to me to bring great advantages, especially when I reflected how long a time must have elapsed before the 714 members of the Society could be reduced by death to that number. And I also thought that as long as those who alone sustained the reputation of the Society by their writings and discoveries should be admitted into it on precisely the same terms, and on the payment of the same sum of money as other gentlemen who contributed only with their purse, it could never be an object of ambition to any man of science to be enrolled on its list. With this view, and also to assist those who wished for a limitation, I suggested a plan extremely simple in its nature, and which would become effective immediately. I proposed that, in the printed list of the Royal Society, a star should be placed against the name of each Fellow who had contributed two or more papers which had been printed in the Transactions, or that such a list should be printed separately at the end. At that period there were 109 living members who had contributed papers to the Transactions, and they were thus arranged: 37 Contributors of.. 1 paper 21.......... 2 papers 19.......... 3 ditto 5 .......... 4 ditto 3 .......... 5 ditto 3 .......... 6 ditto 12.... from 7 to 12 ditto 14... of more than 12 papers. 100 Contributing Fellows of the Royal Society. 589 Papers contributed by them. Now the immediate effect of printing such a list would be the division of the Society into two classes. Supposing two or more papers necessary for placing a Fellow in the first class, that class would only consist of seventy-two members, which is nearly the same as the number of those of the Institute of France. If only those who had contributed three or more were admitted, then this class would be reduced to fifty-one. In either of these cases it would obviously become a matter of ambition to belong to the first class; and a more minute investigation into the value of each paper would naturally take place before it was admitted into the Transactions. Or it might be established that such papers only should be allowed to count, as the Committee, who reported them as fit to be printed, should also certify. The great objection made to such an arrangement was, that it would be displeasing to the rest of the Society, and that they had a vested right (having entered the Society when no distinction was made in the lists) to have them always continued without one.