| Description | He doubts whether Clarke's plan could be a success. If Northampton understands it, the purpose is an annual meeting for social gatherings of his projected society for different scientific enquiries. He gives reasons why he thinks this would not succeeed, and the likelihood of its interefreing with other scientific societies. If there are no papers to be published, he cannot see why it would be divided into sections, and many men are already members of several societies, from which he proposes to recruit his members. He discusses how they would be organised into such sections, what limits there might be on subject divisions, and how some existing societies would be included in the plan and some excluded. He notes the Royal Irish Academy's literary as well as scientific brief. He thinks that if such a scheme was ever successful, the President of the Royal Society should be ex-officio President of the new society, but the new organisaton woudl be in direct conflict with the Royal Society and the whole proposal might provoke discord. |