276 WRITINGS OF JOSEPH HENRY. [1847 



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 effect 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 difiicul- 

 ties which would occur in rejecting papers of an unphilo- 

 sophical character ; and though it may in some cases exclude 

 an interesting communication, yet the strict observance 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 under- 

 value 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 provisionally adopt- 

 ing well-conditioned hypotheses, the product of the imagi- 

 nation, and subsequently verifying them by an appeal to 

 experiment and observation. Every new hypothesis of sci- 

 entific value must not only furnish an exact explanation of 

 known facts, but must also enable us to predict in kind and 

 cquantity — the phenomena which will be exhibited under any 

 given combination of circumstances. Thus, in the case of 

 the undulatory hypothesis of light, it was inferred as a log- 



