PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 953 



works on different branches of zoology now in the course 

 of publication, will leave their authors losers by an aggre- 

 gate of $15,000. I do not include in this estimate works 

 already finished — one, for instance, the best contribution to 

 the natural history of man extant, the publication of which 

 will occasion its accomplished author a loss of several thou- 

 sand dollars. A naturalist is extremely fortunate if he can 

 dispose of two hundred copies of an illustrated work, and 

 the number of copies printed rarely exceeds two hundred 

 and fifty." It may be said that these authors have their 

 reward in the reputation which they thus purchase ; but 

 reputation should be the result of the talents and labor ex- 

 pended in the production of a work, and should not in the 

 least depend upon the fact that the author is able to make a 

 pecuniary sacrifice in giving the account of his discoveries 

 to the public. 



Besides the advantage to the author of having his memoir 

 published in the Smithsonian Contributions free of expense, 

 his labors will be given to the world with the stamp of 

 approval of a commission of learned men, and his merits 

 will be generally made known through the reports of the 

 institution. Though the premiums offered may be small, 

 yet they will have considerable efiect in producing original 

 articles. Fifty or a hundred dollars awarded to the author 

 of an original paper, will, in many instances, suffice to 

 supply the books, or to pay for the materials, or the manual 

 labor required in prosecuting the research. 



There is one proposition of the programme which has 

 given rise to much discussion, and which, therefore, requires 

 particular explanation. I allude to that which excludes 

 from the contributions all papers consisting merely of un- 

 verified speculations on subjects of physical science. The 

 object of this proposition is to obviate the endless difficul- 

 culties which would occur in rejecting papers of an un- 

 philosophical character; and though it may in some cases 

 exclude an interesting communication, yet the strict observ- 

 ance of it will be found of so much practical importance 

 that it cannot be dispensed with. It has been supposed, 

 from the adoption of this proposition, that we are disposed 

 to undervalue abstract speculations ; on the contrary, we 

 know that all the advances in true science — namely, a 

 knowledge of the laws of phenomena — are made by pro- 

 visionally adopting well-conditioned hypotheses, the product 

 of the imagination, and subsequently verifying them by an 

 appeal to experiment and observation. Every new hypo- 

 thesis of scientific value must not only furnish an exact 



