among whom were Christian Huyghens and Bernard Frenicle
de Bessy (1605-1675), the author of a famous treatise on
magic squares, were chosen to form the nucleus of the new
society. Pensions were granted by Louis XIV. to each of
the members, and a fund for instruments and experiment was
placed at their disposal. They began their session on the
22nd of December 1666 in the Royal Library, meeting twice a
week--the mathematicians on Wednesdays, the physicists on
Saturdays. Duhamel was appointed permanent secretary, a post
he owed more to his polished Latinity than to his scientific
attainments, all the proceedings of the society being recorded
in Latin, and C. A. Couplet was made treasurer. At first the
academy was rather a laboratory and observatory than an academy
proper. Experiments were undertaken in common and results
discussed. Several foreign savants, in particular the
Danish astronomer Roemer, joined the society, attracted hy the
liberality of the Grand Monarque; and the German physician and
geometer Tschirnhausen and Sir Isaac Newton were made foreign
associates. The death of Colbert, who was succeeded by
Louvois, exercised a disastrous effect on the fortunes of the
academy. The labours of the academicians were diverted
from the pursuit of pure science to such works as the
construction of fountains and cascades at Versailles, and
the mathematicians were employed to calculate the odds of
the games of lansquenet and basset. In 1699 the academy was
reconstituted by Louis Phelypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain,
under whose department as secretary of state the academies
came. By its new constitution it consisted of twenty-five
members, ten honorary, men of high rank interested in
science, and fifteen pensionaries, who were the working
members. Of these three were geometricians, three
astronomers, three mechanicians, three anatomists, and three
chemists. Each of these three had two associates, and,
besides, each pensionary had the privilege of naming a
pupil. There were eight foreign and four free associates.
The officers were, a president and a vice-president, named by
the king from among the honorary members, and a secretary and
treasurer chosen from the pensionaries, who held office for
life. Fontenelle, a man of wit, and rather a popularizer of
science than an original investigator, succeeded Duhamel as
secretary. The constitution was purely aristocratical,
differing in that respect from that of the French Academy, in
which the principle of equality among the members was never
violated. Science was not yet strong enough to dispense with
the patronage of the great. The two leading spirits of the
academy at this period were Clairault and Reaumur. To trace
the subsequent fortunes of this academy would be to write
the history of the rise and progress of science in France.
It has reckoned among its members Laplace, Buffon, Lagrange,
D'Alembert, Lavoisier, and Jussieu, the father of modern
botany. On the 21st of December 1792 it met for the last time,
and it was suppressed with its sister academies by the act of
the Convention on the 8th of April 1793. Some of its members
were guillotined, some were imprisoned, more were reduced to
poverty. The aristocracy of talent was almost as much
detested and persecuted by the Revolution as that of rank.
In 1795 the Convention decided on founding an Institut
National which was to replace all the academies, and its first
class corresponded closely to the old academy of sciences.
In 1816 the Academie des sciences was reconstituted as a
branch of the Institute. The new academy has reckoned among
its members, besides many other brilliant men, Carnot the
engineer, the physicists Fresnel, Ampere, Arago, Blot, the
chemists Gay-Lussac and Thenard, the zoologists G. Cuvier
and the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires. In France there were
also considerable academies in most of the large towns.
Montpellier, for example, had a royal academy of sciences,
founded in 1706 by Louis XIV., on nearly the same footing as
that of Paris, of which, indeed, it was in some measure the
counterpart. It was reconstituted in 1847, and organized under
three sections--medicine, science and letters. Toulouse also
has an academy, founded in 1640, under the name of Soeiete
de lanternistes; and there were analogous institutions
at Nimes, Arles, Lyons, Dijon, Bordeaux and elsewhere.
Germany.---The Collegium Curiosum was a scientific society,
founded by J. C. Sturm, professor of mathematics and natural
philosophy in the university of Altorf, in Franconia, in 1672, on
the plan of the Accademia del Cimento. It originally consisted
of twenty members, and continued to flourish long after the
death of its founder. The early labours of the society were
devoted to the repetition (under varied conditions) of the most
notable experiments of the day, or to the discussion of the
results. Two volumes (1676-1685) of proceedings were published by
Sturm. The former, Collegium Experimentale sive Curiosum,
begins with an account of the diving-bell, ``a new invention'';
next follow chapters on the camera obscura, the Torricellian
experiment, the air-pump, microscope, telescope, &c.
The Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, if judged
by the work it has produced, holds the first place in
Germany. Its origin was the Societas Regia Scientiarum,
constituted in 1700 by Frederick I. on the comprehensive
plan of Leibnitz, who was its first president. Hampered and
restricted under Frederick William I., it was reorganized
under Frederick II. on the French model furnished by
Maupertuis, and received its present constitution in
1812. It is divided into two classes and four sections
--physical and mathematical, philosophical and historical.
Each section has a permanent secretary with a salary of 1200
marks, and each of the 50 regular members is paid 600 marks a
year. Among the contributors to its transactions (first
volume published in 1710), to name only the dead, we
find Immanuel Bekker, Bockling, Bernoulli, F. Bopp, P.
Buttmann, Encke (of comet fame), L. Euler, the brothers
Grimm, the two Humboldts, Lachmann, Lagrange, Leibnitz, T.
Mommsen, J. Muller, G. Niebuhr, C. Ritter (the geographer),
Savigny and Zumpt. Frederick II. presented in 1768 A
Dissertation on Ennui. To the Berlin Academy we owe the
Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, the Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum, and the Monumenta Germaniae Historica.
The Akademie der Wissenschaflen zu Mannheim was founded
by the elector Palatine in 1755. Since 1780 it has
devoted itself specially to meteorology, and has published
valuable observations under the title of Ephemerides
Societatis Meteorologicae Theodoro-Palatinae.
The Bavarian Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Munchen was
founded in 1759. It is distinguished from other academies
by the part it has played in national education. Maximilian
Joseph, the enlightened elector (afterwards king) of
Bavaria, induced the government to hand over to it the
organization and superintendence of public instruction,
and this work was carried out by Privy-councillor Jacobi,
the president of the academy. In recent years the academy
has specially occupied itself with natural history.
The Konigliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, at Erfurt,
which dates from 1754 and devotes itself to applied science,
and the Hessian academy of sciences at Giessen, which
publishes medical transactions, also deserve mention.
Great Britain and Ireland.--- In 1616 a scheme for founding
a royal academy was started by Edmund Bolton, an eminent
scholar and antiquary, who in his petition to King James I.,
which was supported by George Villiers, marquis of Buckingham,
proposed that the title of the academy should be ``King James,
his Academe or College of honour.'' A list of the proposed
original members is still extant, and includes the names of
George Chapman, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, John Selden,
Sir Kenelm Digby and Sir Henry Wotton. The constitution is
of interest as reflecting the mind of the learned king. The
academy was to consist of three classes,---tutelaries, who
were to be Knights of the Garter, auxiliaries, all noblemen
or ministers of state, and the essentials, ``called from out
of the most famous lay gentlemen of England, and either living
in the light of things, or without any title of profession
or art of life for lucre.'' Among other duties to be assigned
to this academy was the licensing of all books other than
theological. The death of King James put an end to the
undertaking. In 1635 a second attempt to found an academy
was made under the patronage of Charles I., with the title of
``Minerva's Museum,'' for the instruction of young noblemen
in the liberal arts and sciences, but the project was soon
dropped. (For the ``British Academy'' see III. below.) About
1645 the more ardent followers of Bacon used to meet, some
in London, some at Oxford, for the discussion of subjects
connected with experimental science. This was the original of
the Royal Society (q.v.), which received its charter in 1662.
A society was formed in Dublin, similar to the Royal Society
in London, as early as 1683; but the distracted state of
the country proved unpropitious to the cultivation of
philosophy and literature. The Royal Irish Academy grew
from a society established in Dublin about 1782 by a number
of gentlemen, most of whom belonged to the university. They
held weekly meetings and read, in turn, essays on various
subjects. They professed to unite the advancement of
science with the history of mankind and polite literature.
The first volume of transactions appeared in 1788.
Hungary.--The Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia (Hungarian
Academy of Sciences) was founded in 1825 by Count Stephen
Szechenyi for the encouragement of the study of the
Hungarian Ianguage and the various sciences. It has about
300 members and a fine building in Budapest containing a
picture gallery and housing various national collections.
Italy.--The Academia Secretorum Natarae was founded
at Naples in 1560 by Giambattista della Porta. It arose
like the French Academy from a little club of friends
who met at della Porta's house and called themselves
the Otiosi. The condition of membership was to have
made some discovery in natural science. Della Porta was
suspected of practising the black arts and summoned to
Rome to justify himself before the papal court. He was
acquitted by Paul V., but commanded to close his academy.
The Accademia dei Lincei, to which della Porta was admitted
when at Rome, and of which he became the chief ornament,
had been founded in 1603 by Federigo Cesi, the marchese di
Monticelli. Galileo and Colonna were among its earliest
members. Its device was a lynx with upturned eyes, tearing a
Cerberus with its claws. As a monument the Lincei have left
the magnificent edition of Fernandez de Oviedo's Natural
History of Mexico (Rome, 1651, fol.), printed at the
expense of the founder and elaborately annotated by the
members. This academy was resuscitated in 1870 under the
title of Reale Accademia dei Lincei, with a literary
as well as a scientific side, endowed in 1878 by King
Humbert; and in 1883 it received official recognition from
the Italian government, being lodged in the Corsini palace,
whose owner made over to it his library and collections.
The Accademia del Cimento was founded at Florence in 1657 by
Leopold de' Medici, brother of the grand duke Ferdinand II.,
at the instigation of Vincenzo Viviani, the geometrician.
It was an academy of experiment, a deliberate protest against
the deductive science of the quadrivium. Its founder left
