pious the number o f academicians, the more the chance and probability
is increafed o f their admitting improper perfons for their
affociates. Weak and ignorant men, once received, are as proud
(and generally more fo) o f the title o f academicians as men who,
-by their talents and abilities, have rifen to that honour; and
while they contribute nothing to the Rock o f knowledge, they
perplex and confound, by the capricioufnefs o f their votes, the belt
laid plans for its enlargement. The number o f one hundred is
much too great for a country in which literature and fcience have
made but a -very limited progrefs. I f there were only fifty ailing
members, and fifty honorary, that is members without votes in the
affairs o f the academy, there would be lefs room for intrigue and
fadion, their proceedings would be more philofophical; and their
induflry receive a happier diredion. A t prefent a confiderable
portion o f their fellows confifts o f young men without a fufficient
acquaintance with literature and fcience for fupporting the name
o f academicians. For the acquirement o f this title nothing more
is requifite, than to be rich and to make prefents to the academy.
Thus I know that gentlemen have been choien whole only pretention
was that o f ¡being called a banker, or inipcc'ior o f the
mines. I was acquainted with fome young men, the ions o f
members, not deficient in literature, but abounding alfo in wealth,
who were defied merely for the merits o f their fathers. Others
have come under my obfervation, who, having made a voyage to
¿Batavia, and feot home fome birds and other productions o f that
illand,
illand, as a prefent to the cabinet o f natural hiftory, were on that
account made academicians. Phyticians in the illand o f St. Bar-
thelemi have been rewarded for fimilar fervices-in the fame manner
: even poft-mafters have been complimented with the title o f
member, merely to enfure the fafe conveyance o f letters and
parcels. Such are the fopperies and abfurdities that have been
committed in Sweden by a fociety o f philofophers ! The name
o f academician; or fellow o f a learned lociety, ought not to 'be
bellowed upon any other qualification or character than that
o f a man o f letters. But thefe qualities are not attached to rank
arid fortune, or other advantages ; nor can they be created by the
diploma o f an academy. It is therefore ridiculous and inconfiftent
with 'good fenfe to place men in fituations for which they are
not fit. L e t thè academies found orders, and grant to their favourites
croffes ór any other particular, marks o f dillindion ; all
thefe may be innocent ; but they Ihould not pretend, by the magic
o f their eleélion, to make philofophers o f men who perhaps fcarce
underlland the meaning o f the expreffion.
Intrigue, cabal, and envy o f real merit, the little vices o f fome
academies and learned focieties, have an unavoidable tendency to
expofe them to the attacks o f wit and ridicule. 1 he farcaftical
epigrams to which the ignorance and dulnels o f individual academicians
have given birth in different countries, would form an
excellent jell-book, and be more generally and indeed more ju llly
admired than a great part o f their memoirs or tranfadions. All
the world knows the epitaph on Pirron :
“ Ci