Abstract
As a Fellow of the Royal Society who has sat for many years continuously in the House of Commons, I have read with much interest your article on the above subject, which, from a Royal Society point of view (but not in any sense from a Parliamentary stand-point) is one of very great importance. No reasonable person would for a moment object, I presume, to Prof. Stokes entering Parliament as a politician, if he be one, provided he be very careful to doff at the door of the House of Parliament every vestige of Royal Society representation, and appear there as a private politician to be taken for just what he is worth in that capacity, and no more. Do not let me be misunderstood: as a man of science he will, even in the House of Commons, receive the personal consideration due to his distinguished personal attainments; and few public assemblies are more ready than that House to give the full value to personal qualities and achievements. But the President of the Royal Society will put that distinguished body, no less than himself, in a thoroughly false position if he presumes to utter there a single sentence in its name. Should I be present—and the same may be said, I trust, of other Fellows—I shall not hesitate to rise instantly and disclaim his pretensions, and declare that he has no more authority than one of the doorkeepers to speak in a political assembly in the name of the Society over which in a purely scientific capacity he presides.
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F.R.S., M.P. Politics and the Presidency of the Royal Society. Nature 37, 104 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/037104a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037104a0
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