Your Committee assume as indisputable propositions, that the utility of the Society is in direct proportion to its respectability. That its respectability can only be secured by its comprising men of high philosophical eminence; and that the obvious means of associating persons of this eminence will be the public conviction, that to belong to the Society is an honour. Your Committee, therefore, think themselves fully borne out in the conclusion, that it would be expedient to limit the Society to such a number as should be a fair representation of the talent of the country; the consequence of which will be, that every vacancy would become an object of competition among persons of acknowledged merit. From the returns which have been laid on your table, of the Fellows who have contributed papers, and from the best estimate they can make of the persons without doors who are engaged in the active pursuit of science, your Committee feel justified in recommending that those limits should be fixed at four hundred, exclusive of foreign members, and of such royal personages as it may be thought proper to admit. As many years must elapse before the present number of seven hundred and fourteen can be reduced to those limits by the course of nature, and as it would be prejudicial to the interests of the Society and of science, that no fresh accessions should take place during that long period, your Committee would further recommend, that till that event takes place, four new members should be annually admitted. With respect to the manner of admission, your Committee are of opinion, that there are several inconveniences in the present mode of proceeding to a single ballot upon each certificate, according to its seniority. If the above limitation should be adopted, it may be presumed, that for every vacancy there will be many candidates; from amongst them, it must be the general wish to select the most distinguished individuals; but to accomplish this, if the present system were to be continued, it would be necessary to reject all those candidates whose certificates were of earlier date than theirs; a process not only extremely irritating, but probably ineffectual from the want of unanimity. Your Committee, therefore, most earnestly recommend, that one general election should take place every year towards the end of the session, and that this should be conducted on the same principles as the present annual election of the Council and officers; VIZ. by having lists printed of all the candidates (whose certificates had been suspended for the usual time,) in which lists each Fellow would mark the requisite number of persons. As the charter, however, requires the concurrence of two-thirds of the Fellows present, your Committee suggest, that after the choice has been determined by the plurality of votes by ballot in the above manner, the successful candidates should be again submitted to a general vote, in accordance with the enactments of the said charter.