77/c' Bfo-iinn'/zQ-s of Ayncricaji Sciciicr. 421 



Doctor Hugh Williamson [b. December 5, 1735; d. in New York 

 May 22, 1719] was a prominent but not particularly useful promoter of 

 science, a writer rather than a thinker. His work has already been 

 referred to. The names of Maclure, who came to Philadelphia about 

 1797, the Rev. John Heckewelder, and Albert Gallatin [b. 1761, d. in 

 1S49], a native of Switzerland, a statesman and financier, subsequently 

 identified with the scientific circles of New York, comjilete the list of the 

 Philadelphia savants of the last century. 



There is not in all American literature a passage which illustrates the 

 peculiar tendencies in the thought of this period so thoroughly as JeiTer- 

 son's defense of the country against the charges of Buffon and Raynal, 

 which he ])ul)lished in 17.S3, which is parlicularl\- entertaining becau.se 

 of its almost pettish depreciation of our motherland. 



On doit etre etoiine [.says Rayiial] que I'Aniericjue iTail pas i-iicore jiroihiit 

 iin boil poete, iiii habile niatheiiialicieii, iiii hoiiiiue de t^eiiie dans nn senl art, on niie 

 .seiile science. 



When we shall have existed as a people as lon,a^ as the Greeks did before they 

 produced a Homer, the Romans a Virgil, the French a Racine and Voltaire, the Eng- 

 lish a Shakespeare and Milton, .should this reproach be still true, we will inquire 

 from what unfriendly causes it has proceeded, that the other countries of Europe 

 and quarters of the earth shall not have inscribed any name in the role of poets. 



In war we have produced a Washington, whose memory will in future ages assume 

 its just station among the most celebrated worthies of the world, when that wretched 

 philosoph}' .shall be forgotten which would have arraiij^ed him anionic the degenera- 

 cies of nature. 



In physics we have produced a Franklin, than whom no one of the present aj^e 

 has made more important discoveries, nor has enriched ])hilo.s()phy with more, or 

 more ingenious .solutions of the phenomena of nature. 



We have supposed Mr. Rittenhou.se second to no astronomer living; that in fj;enius 

 he must be the first, because he is self-tau<(lit. He has not indeed made a world; 

 but he has by imitation approached nearer its Maker than any man who has lived 

 from the creation to this day. There are varioiis ways of keeping the truth out of 

 si,y,ht. .Mr. Rittenhou.se's model of the planetar}' .system has the plagiary appellation 

 of an orrer\-; and the (quadrant invented by Godfrey, an American also, and with the 

 aid of which the European nations traverse the globe, is called Hadley's quadrant. 



We calculate thus : The United States contain three millions of inhabitants; France 

 twenty millions; and the British Islands tin. We produce a Wa.shington, a Frank- 

 lin, a Rittenhouse. I'rance then should have half a dozen in each of the.se lines, 

 and Great Britain half that number, equally eminent. It may be true that France 

 has; we are but just becoming acijuainted with her, and our acciuaintance so far 

 gives us hii^li ideas of the tfenius of her inhabitants. 



The present war havinj;- so lonj.^ cnit off all communication with Great Britain, we 

 are not able to make a fair estimali' of the .state of science in that country. The 

 .spirit in which .she wages war is the only sample before our eyes, and that does not 

 .seem the legitimate ofTspring either of science or of civilization. The sun of her 

 j^lory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the channel, her 

 freedom the Atlantic, and her.self seems ])as.sin,t( to that awful di.s.solution who.se 

 issue is not given human fore.sij^ht to .scan.' 



This was one phase of pttl)lic .sentiment. Another, no less instructive, 

 ' Notes on the State of Virginia, 1788, pp. 69-71. 



