Anniversary Dinner 1971

IT is my privilege to propose the toast of The Royal Society; but, first, Mr President, I must thank you and all the Fellows for their great hospitality to us. W e know that, among scientists, the most coveted distinction is to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. But we others know nothing of your science. W e do not even understand the words which you use. Mr President, this evening, I would like to compare those first members of this Royal Society, over three-hundred years ago, who were of all disciplines. There was no breach then, between science and religion, or between science and the arts, or between science and the humanities. Now we live in an age when it seems to some that science is divorced from religion, that between science and humanities there is a great gulf fixed, and that our students from their youth up have to go either on this science ladder or on the arts ladder. I would plead once more for a rapprochement such as was in existence three-hundred years ago.