I9I2.] BALCH— SOME FORMER MEMBERS. 599 



and Wheaton ; and the Royal Academy of the Lincei of Rome (1603), 

 one of whose foreign members was the historian, Henry Charles 

 Lea. A few more might be cited but their total number is small. 



Surely some of the work performed by men of letters has re- 

 dounded as much to the benefit and advancement of humanity as 

 anything discovered by the exact scientists. What more difficult 

 and beneficent task opens before the scholar than the effort to aid 

 in solving the difficult problem of government? Like individuals, 

 nations are born, grow up unless cut down in their youth, reach 

 maturity and sooner or later die. Yet in both the case of the indi- 

 viduals and states the span of life can be shortened or lengthened 

 according as sound rules of life are followed. In the case of nations 

 this depends in great part on what manner of government they have. 

 For thousands of years men have worked at that problem and the 

 solution of it seems as far off as at the beginning. A little more 

 than a century since, some of the ablest men of our then young coun- 

 try — some of them members of this Society — framed in yonder his- 

 toric building, our old Pennsylvania State House (1735), in the 

 shadow of whose steeple this also historic building stands, a form 

 of government that at the time was admirably suited to the needs 

 of this country. It was a distinct advance in government building. 

 Yet, they originated little that was new, and most of that little 

 proved in practice to be abortive. In framing the form of govern- 

 ment under which this republic has prospered for over a hundred 

 years, they ranged the whole past of humanity for the efforts of 

 other races at government building. And from the experiments of 

 other nations, as tried and tested in the sound school of experience, 

 and the writings of the great commentators upon government and 

 human rights, such as Locke, Grotius, Montesquieu and Burla- 

 maqui,-* they evolved their scheme of government. ^^ That that 



^J. J. Burlamaqui, "The Principles of Natural Law; — in which the true 

 systems of Morality and Civil Government are established." Nugent's trans- 

 lation, London, 1748. There is a copy of this book in the Library Company 

 of Philadelphia. 



^ Writing from Philadelphia, November 13, 1789, to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 

 Franklin says : " Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appear- 

 ance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be 

 certain, except death and taxes." 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC. , LI. 207 L, PRINTED JAN. 20, I9I3. 



