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as desirable; but thus much I may venture to lay down, that 

 original genius in inquirers ought to be as far indulged as it is pos- 

 sible to indulge it, both in respect of subject and of time ; and that 

 due time ought also to be allowed to those members of a Scientific 

 Society, on whom is put the important and delicate office of pro- 

 nouncing an award in its name. 



The length at which I have spoken of our relations to Science, 

 as a Society publishing Transactions, though far from exhausting 

 that subject, leaves me but little room, in this address, to speak of 

 our relations to Literature and Antiquities ; subjects to which, in- 

 deed, I am still less able to do justice, than to that former theme. 

 But the spirit of many of my recent remarks applies to these other 

 subjects also ; and you will easily make the application, without 

 any formal commentary from me. A word or two, however, must 

 be said on some points of distinction and connexion between the 

 one set of subjects and the other. 



As, in Science, or the study of the True, the highest rank must 

 be assigned to the science of the investigating Mind itself, and to the 

 study of those Faculties by which we become cognizant of truth ; 

 so, in Literature, or the study of the Beautiful, the highest place 

 belongs to the relation of Beauty to the mind, and the study of 

 those essential Forms, or innate laws of taste, in and by which, 

 alone, man is capable of beholding the beautiful. Above all par- 

 ticular fair things is the Idea of Beauty general : which in proportion 

 as a man has suffered to possess his spirit, and has, as it were, 

 won down from heaven to earth, to irradiate him with inward 

 glory, in the same proportion does he become fitted to be a minister 

 of the spirit of beauty, in the poetry of life, or of language, or of 

 the sculptor's, or the painter's art. The mathematician himself may 

 be inspired by this in-dwelling beauty, while he seeks to behold 

 not only truth but harmony ; and thus the profoundest work of a 

 Lagrange may become a scientific poem. And though I am aware 

 that little can be communicated by expressions so general (and 

 some will say so vague) as these, and check myself accordingly, 

 to introduce some remarks more specific and definite ; yet I will 

 not regret that I have thus for a moment attempted to give words 

 to that form of emotion, which many here will join with me in 

 acknowledging to be the ultimate spring of all genuine and genial 



