oken in the debates, he had with
respect to agrarian problems precisely what he had in the economic
club of Glasgow with respect to commercial problems, the best
opportunities of hearing them discussed at first hand by those who
were practically most conversant with the subjects in all their
details. Of course the society sometimes discussed questions of
literature or art, or familiar old historical controversies, such as
whether Brutus did well in killing Caesar? Indeed, no subject was
expressly tabooed except such as might stir up the Deistic or Jacobite
strife--in the words of the rules, "such as regard revealed religion,
or which may give occasion to vent any principles of Jacobitism." But
the great majority of the questions debated were of an economic or
political character,--questions about outdoor relief, entail, banking,
linen export bounties, whisky duties, foundling hospitals, whether the
institution of slavery be advantageous to the free? and whether a
union with Ireland would be advantageous to Great Britain? Sometimes
more than one subject would be got through in a night, sometimes the
debate on a single subject would be adjourned from week to week till
it was thought to be thrashed out; and every member might speak three
times in the course of a debate if he chose, once for fifteen minutes,
and the other twice for ten.

The Select Society was, however, as I have said, more than a debating
club; it aimed besides at doing something practical for the promotion
of the arts, sciences, manufactures, and agriculture, in the land of
its birth, and accordingly, when it was about ten months in existence,
it established a well-devised and extensive scheme of prizes for
meritorious work in every department of human labour, to be supported
by voluntary subscriptions. In the prospectus the society issued it
says that, after the example of foreign academies, it had resolved to
propose two subjects for competition every year, chosen one from
polite letters and the other from the sciences, and to confer on the
winner some public mark of distinction in respect to his taste and
learning. The reward, however, was not in this case to be of a
pecuniary nature, for the principle of the society was that rewards of
merit were in the finer arts to be honorary, but in the more useful
arts, where the merit was of a less elevated character, they were to
be lucrative. On the same principle, in the arts the highest place was
allowed to