In consequence of this state of things, the officers of the Royal Society are most frequently third or fourth-rate men, who not having sufficient occupation in their own professions, seek the office as a means of adding to their income. Or, they may be, in some cases, military men, who being paid by the public for other duties, are glad to get relieved from them without the loss of their emoluments. Persons holding offices in the Royal Society ought by their scientific eminence to confer dignity on their office: instead of acquiring a position in the world by its acceptance. § Again, the justice of the decisions of the Council in awarding their medals, has been publicly impeached. A very few years since, a general meeting of the Society was summoned on the requisition of several of its members, to inquire into the circumstances attending the award of certain Royal medals. It was admitted by the President that there had been considerable irregularities in some of the awards, and the Council only escaped a vote of censure in consequence of some little want of management in those who proposed it. During this discussion one of the Fellows of the Royal Society got up, and remarked that although this case was very bad, it became trifling when compared with the circumstances attending the very first award of the Royal medals; for on that occasion the Council had wilfully violated the laws they had themselves established for their distribution, and that on his formally demonstrating the facts by reference to their own minutes, they with singular consistency refused to alter their unfair and unjust decision. § Difficulties of another kind arise respecting the Presidents of Societies. When the office of President is really or practically a permanent one, it is very difficult to carry on the business of the Society if the President is a person of exalted rank, or if he do not permanently reside in London. In either case it usually happens that a secretary or treasurer, or other officer who is resident, insensibly becomes the means of communication with the President, who is naturally anxious to be acquainted with the feelings and wishes of the body over which he presides. The most honest officer can scarcely fail to have some little bias towards his own opinions: he will naturally mix more with those who approve of, than with those who differ from them, and will consequently, although perhaps unintentionally, communicate to the President a one-sided view of his own, as the dominant opinion of the Society. The President, on the other hand, however really anxious he may be to introduce any amendments which he conceives advantageous for the Society, will naturally doubt their policy if informed that they are not in unison with the opinions of the body. He will communicate with his treasurer, secretary, or other officer, and almost always express his concurrence in the course proposed to him as being the most agreeable to the body at large.