The correctness of the principle of promoting research is also recognised by our Governments in their yearly grants of money to the Royal Society, and to the Royal Irish Academy[25] to aid research, also by the Council of the Chemical Society, which has established a fund for the same purpose; and by the British Association in their annual grants for the promotion of scientific enquiry. The Fishmonger's Company also presented to Mr. W. R. Parker, F.R.S., the sum of £50, followed by an annual gift of £20 for {172} the three years, to assist him in bearing the expenses of his researches on the skulls of vertebrate animals. And the British Pharmaceutical Conference voted the sum of £80 from the Bell and Hills fund, during the period of three years, in aid of research in connection with pharmaceutical science. A small fund for the purpose of research exists also at the Royal Institution. Fellowships also with a similar object have been founded at the Victoria University. Dr. Priestley also was aided in his researches by contributions from a small circle of friends. In recognition of the same principle, nearly all of the most eminent scientific men on the Continent have been assisted by their respective Governments. The total amount of aid to research in this country is however very small, and to one acquainted with the great commercial and other any valuable results of such labour, it is simply astounding that we have not systematically organized a powerful means of promoting discovery. A few scientific persons however still continue to oppose aid to research; quite recently, scientific investigators have been spoken of as a class of "men amusing themselves without any result whatever."[26] That idea however abundantly refuted in the foregoing pages. It has also been remarked[27] that "practically, endowment of research comes to the creation of positions where there is payment without corresponding labour." "In England above all countries in the world, there will always be plenty of {173} amateurs ready and willing to assist in research, and it is notorious that in England, almost without exception, all the great advances in science have been made by such amateurs. Therefore I do not think it at all desirable that the British tax-payer should be required to put his hand in his pocket to provide salaries for gentlemen who might be working rightly or wrongly. He could not control them, and while there are such a body of amateurs in the country, I think the researches may be very well left to them."