ter into such discussions. There
is, however, a maxim too well established to need any comment of mine.
The public character of every public servant is legitimate subject
of discussion, and his fitness or unfitness for office may be fairly
canvassed by any person. Those whose too sensitive feelings shrink from
such an ordeal, have no right to accept the emoluments of office, for
they know that it is the condition to which all must submit who are paid
from the public purse.

The same principle is equally applicable to Companies, to Societies, and
to Academies. Those from whose pocket the salary is drawn, and by whose
appointment the officer was made, have always a right to discuss the
merits of their officers, and their modes of exercising the duties they
are paid to perform.

This principle is equally applicable to the conduct of a Secretary of
State, or to that of a constable; to that of a Secretary of the Royal
Society, or of an adviser to the Admiralty.

With respect to honorary officers, the case is in some measure
different. But the President of a society, although not recompensed by
any pecuniary remuneration, enjoys a station, when the body over which
he presides possesses a high character, to which many will aspire, who
will esteem themselves amply repaid for the time they devote to the
office, by the consequence attached to it in public estimation. He,
therefore, is answerable to the Society for his conduct in their chair.

There are several societies in which the secretaries, and other
officers, have very laborious duties, and where they are unaided by a
train of clerks, and yet no pecuniary remuneration is given to them.
Science is much indebted to such men, by whose quiet and unostentatious
labours the routine of its institutions is carried on. It would be
unwise, as well as ungrateful, to judge severely of the inadvertencies,
or even of the negligence of such persons: nothing but weighty causes
should justify such a course.

Whilst, however, I contend for the principle of discussion and inquiry
in its widest sense, because I consider it equally the safeguard of our
scientific as of our political institutions, I shall use it, I hope,
temperately; and having no personal feelings myself, but living in terms
of intercourse with almost all, and of intimacy with several of those
from whom I most widely differ, I shall not attempt to heap together
all the causes of complaint; but, by selecting a few in differ