Gentlemen,—I find it recorded that in the year 1662, which was the first year of the incorporation of the Royal Society of London, the celebrated mathematician, Robert Hooke, drew up “Proposals for the good of the Royal Society,” the third article of which was as follows :— “That every member of the Society shall be equally obliged to promote the ends thereof by paying 52s. yearly, and by doing some one duty that shall be charged on him by the Council once a year, or, if his occasions will not permit, to pay 52s. more per annum.’ This proposed salutary rule does not seem ever to have been enacted by the Royal Society of London, nor do I believe that any analogous article forms part of the statutes of this Society, and yet it is in accordance with the spirit of such a rule that I appear before you this evening.