elaborated many details of the Platonic teaching, which we couid ill have spared; but of Plato's originality and speculative power, of his poetry and enthusiasm, they inherited nothing; "nor amid all the learning which has been profusely lavished upon investigating their tenets, is there a single deduction calculated to elucidate distinctly the character of their progress or regression."1 There is a saying of Polemo's, which will illustrate their virtual abandonment of philosophy proper: "We should exercise ourselves in business, not in dialectical speculation."

Arcesilaus, the successor of Crates, the disciple of Theophrastus and Polemo, was the founder of the second or middle Academy. He professed himself the strict follower of Plato, and seems to have been sincerely of opinion that his was nothing but a legitimate development of the true Platonic system. He followed the Socratic method of teaching in dialogues; and, like Socrates, left no writings,—at least the ancients were not acquainted with any. But we have no evidence that he maintained the ideal theory of Plato, and from the general tendency of his teaching it is probable that he overlooked it. He affirmed that neither our senses nor our mind can attain to any certainty; in all we must suspend our judgment; probability is the guide of life. Cicero tells us that he was more occupied in disputing the opinions of others than in advancing any of his own. Arcesilaus is, in fact, the founder of that academic scepticism which was developed and systematised by Carneades, the founder of the third or new Academy. He was the chief opponent of the Stoics and their doctrine of certitude. This is attested by a well-known saying of his: "If there had been no Chrysippus, there would have been no Carneades." To the Stoical theory of perception, the paνTAσía KATAλYTTIKń, by which they expressed a conviction of certainty arising from impressions so strong as to amount to science, he opposed the doctrine of åkarantía, which denied any necessary correspondence between perceptions and the objects perceived. But while denying the possibility of any knowledge of things in themselves, he saved himself from absolute scepticism by the doctrine of probability or verisimilitude, which may serve as a practical guide in life. Thus he announced as his criterion of truth an imagination or impression (pavraoía) at once credible, irrefragable, and attested by comparison with other impressions. The wise man might be permitted to hold an opinion, though he allowed that that opinion might be false. In ethics, however, he appeared as the pure sceptic. On his visit to Rome as an ambassador from Athens, he alternately maintained and denied in his public disputations the existence of justice, to the great scandal of Cato and all honest citizens.

On the fourth and fifth Academies, we need not dwell long. Philo and Antiochus both taught Cicero, and without doubt communicated to him that mild scepticism, that eclecticism compounded of almost equal sympathy with Plato and Zeno, which is the characteristic of his philosophical writings. The Academy exactly corresponded to the moral and political wants of Rome. With no genius for speculation, the better Romans of that day were content to embrace a system which, though resting on no philosophical basis, and compounded of heterogeneous dogmas, offered notwithstanding a secure retreat from religious scepticism and political troubles. "My words," says Cicero, speaking as a true Academician, "do not proclaim the truth, like a Pythian priestess; but I conjecture what is probable, like a plain man; and where, I ask, am I to search for anything more than verisimilitude?" And again: "The characteristic of the Academy is never to

1 Archer Butler, Lect. on Anc. Phil. ii. 315.

interpose one's judgment, to approve what seems most probable, to compare together different opinions, to see what may be advanced on either side, and to leave one's listeners free to judge without pretending to dogmatise."

ACADEMY, in its modern acceptation, signifies a society. or corporate body of learned men, established for the advancement of science, literature, or the arts.

The first institution of this sort we read of in history was that founded at Alexandria by Ptolemy Soter, which he named the Museum, povoЄîov. After completing his conquest of Egypt, he turned his attention to the cultivation of letters and science, and gathered about him a large body of literary men, whom he employed in collecting books and treasures of art. This was the origin of the library of Alexandria, the most famous of the ancient world. Passing by the academies which were founded by the Moors at Grenada, Corduba, and as far east as Samarcand, the next instance of an academy is that founded by Charlemagne at the instigation of the celebrated Alcuin, for promoting the study of grammar, orthography, rhetoric, poetry, history, and mathematics. In order to equalise all ranks, each member took the pseudonym of some ancient author or celebrated person of antiquity. For instance, Charlemagne himself was David, Alcuin became Flaccus Albinus. Though none of the labours of this academy have come down to us, it undoubtedly exerted considerable influence in modelling the language and reducing it to rules.

In the following century Alfred founded an academy at Oxford. This was rather a grammar school than a society of learned men, and from it the University of Oxford originated.

But the academy which may be more justly considered as the mother of modern European academies is that of Floral Games, founded at Toulouse in the year 1325, by Clemens Isaurus. Its object was to distribute prizes and rewards to the troubadours. The prizes consisted of flowers of gold and silver. It was first recognised by the state in 1694, and confirmed by letters-patent from the king, and its numbers limited to thirty-six. It has, except during a few years of the republic, continued to the present day, and distributes annually the following prizes :-An amaranth of gold for the best ode, a silver violet for a poem of sixty to one hundred Alexandrine lines, a silver eglantine for the best prose composition, a silver marigold for an elegy, and a silver lily presented in the last century by M. de Malpeyre for a hymn to the Virgin.

It was the Renaissance which was par excellence the era of academies, and as the Italians may be said to have discovered anew the buried world of literature, so it was in Italy that the first and by far the most numerous academies arose. The earliest of these was the Platonic Academy, founded at Florence by Cosmo de Medici for the study of the works of Plato, though subsequently they added the explanation of Dante and other Italian authors.

Marsilius Ficinus, its principal ornament, in his Theologica Platonica, developed a system, chiefly borrowed from the later Platonists of the Alexandrian school, which, as it seemed to coincide with some of the leading doctrines of Christianity, was allowed by the church. His Latin translation of Plato is at once literal, perspicuous, and correct; and as he had access to MSS. of Plato now lost, it has in several places enabled us to recover the original reading. After the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, the Platonic Academy was dissolved.

In giving some account of the principal academies of Europe, which is all that this article professes to do, we shall, as far as possible, arrange them under different heads, according to-1st, The object which they were designed to promote; 2d, The countries to which they belong. This classification, though, perhaps, the best available, is

necessarily imperfect, inasmuch as several of those we shall mention were at once literary and scientific, and many associations for similar objects were known by some other naze. Thus, with the doubtful exception of the Royal Academy of Arts, England has no academies in the proper sense of the word. For those institutions in England which answer to Italian academies, we must refer the reader to the article SOCIETY.

I. SCIENTIFIC ACADEMIES.-Italy.-The first society for the prosecution of physical science was that established at Naples, 1560, under the presidency of Baptista Porta. It was called Academia Secretorum Naturæ or de Secreti. It arose from a meeting of some scientific friends, who assembled at Porta's house, and called themselves the Otiosi. No member was admitted who had not made some useful discovery in medicine or natural philosophy. The name suggested to an ignorant public the prosecution of magic and the black arts. Porta went to Rome to justify himself before Paul III. He was acquitted by the Pope, but the academy was dissolved, and he was ordered to abstain for the future from the practice of all illicit arts.

At Rome he was admitted to the Lincei, an academy founded by Federigo Cesi, the Marcese di Monticelli. The device of the Lincei was a lynx with its eyes turned towards heaven tearing a Cerberus with its claws, intimating that they were prepared to do battle with error and falsehood. Their motto was the verse of Lucretius describing rain dropping from a cloud-"Redit agmine dulci." Besides Porta, Galileo and Colonna were enrolled among its members. The society devoted itself exclusively to physical science. Porta, under its auspices, published his great work, Magic Naturalis libri xx., 1589, in fol.; his Phytognomonica, or, the occult virtue of plants; his De Humana Physiognomia, from which Lavater largely borrowed; also various works on optics and pneumatics, in which he approached the true theory of vision. He is even said by some to have anticipated Galileo in the invention of the telescope. But the principal monument still remaining of the zeal and industry of Ĉesi and his academy is the Phytobasanos, a compendium of the natural history of Mexico, written by a Spaniard, Hernendez. During fifty years the MS. had been neglected, when Cesi discovered it, and employed Terentio, Fabro, and Colonna, all Lynceans, to edit it and enrich it with notes and emendations. Cesi's own great work, Theatrum Naturæ, was never published. The MS. still exists in the Albani Library at Rome. After Cesi's death, 1630, the academy languished for some years under the patronage of Urban VIII. An academy of the same name was inaugurated at Rome 1784, and still flourishes. It numbers among its members some of our English philosophers. But the fame of the Lincei was far outstripped by that of the Accademia del Cimento, established in Florence 1657, under the patronage of the Grand Duke Ferdinand II., at the instigation of his brother Leopold, acting under the advice of Viviani, one of the greatest geometers of Europe. The object of this academy was (as the name implies) to make experiments and relate them, abjuring all preconceived notions. Unfortunately for science, it flourished for only ten years. Leopold in 1667 was made a cardinal, and the society languished without its head. It has, however, left a record of its labours in a volume containing an account of the experiments, published by the secretary in 1667. It is in the form of a beautifully printed folio, with numerous full print pages of illustrations. It contains, among others, those on the supposed incompressibility of water, on the pressure of the air, and on the universal gravity of bodies. Torricelli, the inventor of the barometer, was one of its members.

Passing by numerous other Italian Academies of Science, we come to those of modern times.

The Royal Academy of Sciences at Turin originated in 1757 as a private society; in 1759 it published a volume of Miscellanea Philosophico-Mathematica Societatis privatæ Taurinensis; shortly after it was constituted a Royal Society by Charles Emanuel III., and in 1783 Victor Amadeus III. made it a Royal Academy of Sciences. It consists of 40 members, residents of Turin, 20 nonresident, and 20 foreign members. It publishes each year a quarto volume of proceedings, and has crowned and awarded prizes to many learned works.

France. The Old Academy of Sciences originated in much the same way as the French Academy. A private society of scientific men had for some thirty years been accustomed to meet first at the house of Montmort, the maitre des requêtes, afterwards at that of Thevenot, a great traveller and man of universal genius, in order to converse on their studies, and communicate their discoveries. To this society belonged, among others, Descartes, Gassendi, Blaise Pascal, and his father. Hobbes, the philosopher of Malmesbury, was presented to it during his visit to Paris in 1640. Colbert, just as Richelieu in the case of the French Academy, conceived the idea of giving an official status to this body of learned men. Seven eminent mathematicians, among whom were Huyghens and De Bessy, the author of a famous treatise on magic squares, were chosen to form the nucleus of the new society. A certain number of chemists, physicians, and anatomists were subsequently added. Pensions were granted by Louis XIV. to each of the members, and a fund for instruments and experimentations placed at their disposal. They commenced their session the 22d December 1666 in the Royal Library. They met twice a week-the mathematicians on the Wednesdays, the physicists (as the naturalists and physiologists were then called) on the Saturdays. Duhamel was appointed secretary by the king. This post he owed more to his polished Latinity than to his scientific attainments, all the proceedings of the society being recorded in Latin. A treasurer was also nominated, who, notwithstanding his pretentious title, was nothing more than conservator of the scientific instruments, &c. At first the academy was rather a laboratory and observatory than an academy proper. Experiments were undertaken in common and results discussed. Several foreign savants, in particular the Danish astronomer Roemer, joined the society, attracted by the liberality of the Grand Monarque; and the German physician and geometer Tschirnhausen and Sir Isaac Newton were made foreign associates. The death of Colbert, who was succeeded by Louvois, exercised a disastrous effect on the fortunes of the academy. The labours of the academicians were diverted from the pursuit of pure science to such works as the construction of fountains and cascades at Versailles, and the mathematicians were employed to calculate the odds of the games of lansquenet and bassett.

In 1699 the academy was reconstituted by M. de Pontchartrain, under whose department as secretary of state the academies came. By its new constitution it consisted of ten honorary members, men of high rank, who interested themselves in science, fifteen pensionaries, who were the working members, viz., three geometricians, and the same number of astronomers, mechanicians, anatomists, and chemists. Each section of three had two associates attached to it, and besides, each pensionary had the power of naming a pupil. There were eight foreign and four free associates. The officers were,

The

The Electoral Academy at Erfurt was established by the Elector of Mentz, in the year 1754. It consists of a protector, president, director, assessors, adjuncts, and associates. Its object is to promote the useful sciences. memoirs were originally published in Latin, but afterwards in German. The Hessian Academy of Sciences at Giessen publish their transactions under the title of Acta Philosophico-Medica Academic Scientiarum Principalis Hessiaca. In the Netherlands there are scientific academies at Flushing and Brussels, both of which have published their transactions.

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Russia. The Imperial Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg was projected by the Czar Peter the Great. Having in the course of his travels observed the advantage of public societies for the encouragement and promotion of literature, he formed the design of founding an academy of sciences at St Petersburg. By the advice of Wolff and Leibnitz, whom he consulted on this occasion, the society was accordingly regulated, and several learned foreigners were invited to become members. Peter himself drew the plan, and signed it on the 10th of February 1724; but he was prevented, by the suddenness of his death, from carrying it into execution. His decease, how ever, did not prevent its completion; for on the 21st of December 1725, Catharine I. established it according to Peter's plan, and on the 27th of the same month the society assembled for the first time. On the 1st of August 1726, Catharine honoured the meeting with her presence, when Professor Bulfinger, a German naturalist of great eminence, pronounced an oration upon the advances made in the theory of magnetic variations, and also on the progress of o far as regarded the discovery of the longiArt time afterwards the empress settled a fund nnum for the support of the academy; and eminent for their learning and talents, were admitte pensioned, under the title of professors in the various branches of science and literature. The most distinguished of these professors were Nicholas and Daniel Bernouilli, the two De Lisles, Bulfinger, and Wolff. During the short reign of Peter II. the salaries of the members were discontinued, and the academy utterly neglected by the Court; but it was again patronised by the Empress Anne, who even added a seminary for the education of youth under the superintendence of the professors. Both institutions flourished for some time under the direction of Baron Korf; but upon his death, towards the end of Anne's reign, an ignorant person being appointed president, many of the most able members quitted Russia. At the accession of Elizabeth, however, new life and vigour were infused into the academy. The original plan was enlarged and improved; some of the most learned foreigners were again drawn to St Petersburg; and, what was considered as a good omen for the literature of Russia, two natives, Lomonosof and Rumovsky, men of genius and abilities, who had prosecuted their studies in foreign universities, were enrolled among its members. Lastly, the annual income was increased to £10,659, and sundry other advantages were conferred upon the institution.

The Empress Catharine II., with her usual zeal for promoting the diffusion of knowledge, took this useful society under her immediate protection. She altered the court of directors greatly to the advantage of the whole body, corrected many of its abuses, and infused a new vigour and spirit into their researches. By Catharine's particular recommendation the most ingenious professors visited the various provinces of her vast dominions; and as the funds of the academy were not sufficient to defray the whole expense of these expeditions, the empress supplied the deficiency by a grant of £2000, which was renewed as occasion required.

The purpose and object of these travels will appear from the instructions given by the academy to the several persons who engaged in them. They were ordered to institute inquiries respecting the different sorts of earths and waters; the best methods of cultivating barren and desert spots; the local disorders incident to men and animals, together with the most efficacious means of relieving them; the breeding of cattle, particularly of sheep; the rearing of bees and silk-worms; the different places and objects for fishing and hunting; minerals of all kinds; the arts and trades; and the formation of a Flora Russica, or collection of indigenous plants. They were particularly instructed to rectify the longitude and latitude of the principal towns; to make astronomical, geographical, and meteorological observa tions; to trace the courses of rivers; to construct the most exact charts; and to be very distinct and accurate in re marking and describing the manners and customs of the different races of people, their dresses, languages, antiquities, traditions, history, religion; in a word, to gain every information which might tend to illustrate the real state of the whole Russian empire. More ample instructions cannot well be conceived; and they appear to have been very zealously and faithfully executed. The consequence was that, at that time, no country could boast, within the space of so few years, such a number of excellent publications on its internal state, its natural productions, its topography, geography, and history, and on the manners, customs, and languages of the different tribes who inhabit it, as issued from the press of this academy. In its researches in Asiatic languages, and general knowledge of Oriental customs and religions, it proved itself the worthy rival of our own Royal Asiatic Society.

The

The first transactions of this society were published in 1728, and entitled Commentarii Academiæ Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitana ad annum 1726, with a dedication to Peter II. The publication was continued under this form until the year 1747, when the transactions were called Novi Commentarii Academiæ, &c.; and in 1777, the academy again changed the title into Acta Academiæ Scientiarum Imperialis Petropolitance, and likewise made some alteration in the arrangements and plan of the work. papers, which had been hitherto published in the Latin language only, were now written indifferently either in that language or in French, and a preface added, entitled Partie Historique, which contains an account of its proceedings, meetings, the admission of new members, and other remarkable occurrences. Of the Commentaries, 14 volumes were published: the first of the New Commentaries made its appearance in 1750, and the twentieth in 1776. Under the new title of Acta Academiæ, a number of volumes have been given to the public; and two are printed every year. These transactions abound with ingenious and claborate disquisitions upon various parts of science and natural history; and it may not be an exaggeration to assert, that no society in Europe has more distinguished itself for the excellence of its publications, particularly in the more abstruse parts of pure and mixed mathematics.

The academy is still composed, as at first, of 15 professors, besides the president and director. Each of these professors has a house and an annual stipend of from £200 to £600. Besides the professors, there are four adjuncts, with pensions, who are present at the sittings of the society, and succeed to the first vacancies. The direction of the academy is generally entrusted to a person of distinction.

The buildings and apparatus of this academy are on a vast scale. There is a fine library, consisting of 36,000 curious books and manuscripts; together with an extensive museum, in which the various branches of natural history, &c., are distributed in different apartments. The latter is extremely rich in native productions, having been consi

derably augmented by the collections made by Pallas, Gmelin, Guldenstaedt, and other professors, during their expeditions through the various parts of the Russian empire. The stuffed animals and birds occupy one apartment. The chamber of rarities, the cabinet of coins, &c., contain innumerable articles of the highest curiosity and value. The motto of the society is exceedingly modest; it consists of only one word, Paulatim.

Sweden. The Academy of Sciences at Stockholm, or the Royal Swedish Academy, owes its institution to six persons of distinguished learning, among whom was the celebrated Linnæus. They originally met on the 2d of June 1739, when they formed a private society, in which some dissertations were read; and in the end of the same year their first publication made its appearance. As the meetings continued and the members increased, the society attracted the notice of the king; and, accordingly, on the 31st of March 1741, it was incorporated under the name of the Royal Swedish Academy. Not receiving any pension from the crown, it is merely under the protection of the king, being directed, like our Royal Society, by its own members. It has now, however, a large fund, which has chiefly arisen from legacies and other donations; but a professor of experimental philosophy, and two secretaries, are still the only persons who receive any salaries. Each of the members resident at Stockholm becomes president by rotation, and continues in office during three months. There are two kinds of members, native and foreign; the election of the former take places in April, that of the latter in July; and no money is paid at the time of admission. The dissertations read at each meeting are collected and published four times in the year: they are written in the Swedish language, and printed in octavo, and the annual publications make a volume. The first 40 volumes, which were completed in 1779, are called the Old Transactions. Denmark.-The Royal Academy of Sciences at Copenhagen owes its institution to the zeal of six individuals, whom Christian VI., in 1742, ordered to arrange his cabinet of medals. These persons were John Gram, Joachim Frederic Ramus, Christian Louis Scheid, Mark Woldickey, Eric Pontopidan, and Bernard Moelman, who, occasionally meeting for this purpose, extended their designs; associated with them others who were eminent in several branches of science; and forming a kind of literary society, employed themselves in searching into, and explaining the history and antiquities of their country. The Count of Holstein, the first president, warmly patronised this society, and recommended it so strongly to Christian VI. that, in 1743, his Danish majesty took it under his protection, called it the Royal Academy of Sciences, endowed it with a fund, and ordered the members to join to their former pursuits natural history, physics, and mathematics. In consequence of the royal favour the members engaged with fresh zeal in their pursuits; and the academy has published 15 volumes in the Danish language, some of which have been translated into Latin.

England. In 1616 a scheme for founding a Royal Academy was started by Edmund Bolton, an eminent scholar and antiquary. Bolton, in his petition to King James, which was supported by George Villiers, Marquis of Buckingham, proposed that the title of the academy should be "King James, his Academe or College of honour." In the list of members occurs the name of Sir Kenelm Digby, one of the original members of the Royal Society. The death of the king proved fatal to the undertaking. In 1635 a second attempt was made to found an academy, under the patronage of Charles I., with the title of "Minerva's Museum," for the instruction of young noblemen in the liberal arts and sciences, but the project was soon dropped. About 1645 some of the more ardent followers

of Bacon used to meet, some in London, some at Oxford, for the discussion of subjects connected with experimental science. This was the origin of the Royal Society, which received its charter in 1662. See RoYAL SOCIETY.

Ireland.-The Royal Irish Academy arose out of a society established at Dublin about the year 1782, and consisting of a number of gentlemen, most of whom belonged to the university. They held weekly meetings, and read essays in turn on various subjects. The members of this society afterwards formed a more extensive plan, and, admitting only such names as might add dignity to their new institution, became the founders of the Royal Irish Academy. They professed to unite the advancement of science with the history of mankind and polite literature. The first volume of their transactions (for 1787) appeared in 1788, and seven volumes were afterwards published. A society was formed in Dublin, similar to the Royal Society in London, as early as the year 1683; but the distracted state of the country proved unpropitious to the cultivation of philosophy and literature.

Holland. The Royal Academy of Sciences at Amsterdam, erected by a royal ordinance 1852, succeeded the Royal Institute of the Low Countries, founded by Louis Napoleon, King of Holland, 1808. In 1855 it had published 192 volumes of proceedings, and received an annual subsidy of 14,000 florins from the state.

Spain. The Academy of Sciences at Madrid, founded 1774, after the model of the French Academy.

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Portugal.-The Academy of Sciences at Lisbon is divided into three classes-natural history, mathematics, and national literature. It consists of 24 ordinary and 36 extraordinary members. Since 1779 it b Memorias de Letteratura Portugueza; Memori Collecção de Livros ineditos di Historia Po II. ACADEMIES OF BELLES LETTRES.- -Italy in the 16th century was remarkable for the n of its literary academies. Tiraboschi, in his History of Italian Literature, has given a list of 171; and Jarkius, in his Specimen Historia Academiarum Conditarum, enumerates nearly 700. Many of these, with a sort of Socratic irony, gave themselves names expressive of ignorance or simply ludiSuch were the Lunatici of Naples, the Estravaganti, the Fulminales, the Trapessati, the Drowsy, the Sleepers, the Anxious, the Confused, the Unstable, the Fantastic, the Transformed, the Etherial. "The first academies of Italy chiefly directed their attention to classical literature; they compared manuscripts; they suggested new readings, or new interpretations; they deciphered inscriptions or coins; they sat in judgment on a Latin ode, or debated the propriety of a phrase. Their own poetry had, perhaps, never been neglected; but it was not till the writings of Bembo furnished a new code of criticism in the Italian language, that they began to study it with the same minuteness as modern Latin." "They were encouragers of a numismatic and lapidary erudition, elegant in itself, and throwing for ever little specks of light on the still ocean of the past, but not very favourable to comprehensive observation, and tending to bestow on an unprofitable pedantry the honours of real learning." The Italian nobility, excluded as they mostly were from politics, and living in cities, found in literature a consolation and a career. Such academies were oligarchical in their constitution; they encouraged culture, but tended to hamper genius and extinguish originality. Of their academies, by far the most celebrated was the Accademia della Crusca or Furfuratorum; that is, of Bran, or of the Sifted. The title was borrowed from a previous society at Perugia, the Accademia degli Scossi, of the Well-shaken. Its device