§ A few years afterwards, the light of truth having penetrated official heads, the learned of Europe, to the credit of the Austrian government, were invited and hospitably entertained at Vienna. The stability of the great empire which welcomed them, was not shaken by their patient and acute discussions: and it was at last perceived that unless when depressed by neglect or persecution, philosophers possess in their own departments subjects of far more animating and delightful interest than the unstable and inconclusive discussions of politics. Sweden sent thirteen representatives to the meeting at Berlin in 1828, Denmark seven, Poland three, Holland two. Russia, France, England and Naples each sent one. § An account of this scientific congress at Berlin was published in 1829 in the _Edinburgh Journal of Science_. It was communicated by the author of these pages to Sir David Brewster. In the number of the same Journal for April, 1831, is an account by J. F. W. Johnstone, Esq., of the meeting of this scientific Congress, at Hamburgh, in September, 1830. Sir David Brewster, in conjunction with the late secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Sir J. Robison, and the Rev. William Vernon Harcourt, and several other cultivators of science, resolved on attempting to organize a similar institution in Great Britain. The difficulties as well as the advantages of this undertaking were then discussed. In Prussia the social position of men of science is quite different from that which they occupy in England. In Prussia the sovereign was aware of the value of science to his country, and was therefore induced to support it by an enlightened patriotism as well as by a generous ambition. In England science is pursued by no powerful profession which can aid or thwart the measures of the minister of the day. He is, therefore, indifferent to its progress, and is usually incapable of distinguishing the charlatan from the philosopher. § In 1831 the first meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was held at York. It was proposed by those who undertook its management, that each succeeding meeting should be held in some large city or town at a considerable distance from that which received it in the previous year, and that after its objects had become well understood by the public, it should complete its cycle by holding a meeting in the metropolis. But it was soon felt that in order to influence public opinion, it was necessary that it should combine larger interests than were yet enlisted in its cause. Such at that time was the state of education in England, that amongst the influential classes, country gentlemen, lawyers, members of parliament, peers, &c., few were found qualified for, or even capable of taking any interest in the then _existing_ Sections of the British Association.