BY WHOM SCIENCE SHOULD BE PROTECTED. 355 
more rare is it to find, superadded to them, the 
gifts of fortune. From whom, then, if abstract 
science is to be fostered and rewarded, is this en- 
couragement to come? Certainly not from the 
public; for what the multitude cannot appreciate, 
they cannot be expected to reward. If, indeed, the 
speculations of the philosopher can be turned into 
immediate advantage by the manufacturer or the 
merchant, the inventor is in a fair way of dividing 
profits with the applier; but we are not at present 
considering such cases. Again, then, let us enquire 
‘who are to be the patrons of our philosophy ? We 
live not, unfortunately, in days when any thing of 
this sort can be looked for from our nobles. “* We 
may in vain search the aristocracy now for philo- 
sophers,’ was the bitter truth extorted from Sir 
Humphry Davy. If intellectual excellence is so 
little cultivated among the higher orders, how is it 
to be expected that they will foster and uphold in 
others, those qualifications they neither possess nor 
value? Were it otherwise, we should not see nearly 
all offices in the state, whose duties implied some 
acquaintance with science, bestowed upon those 
who were destitute of such qualifications. Philo- 
sophy can, then, only look to national endowments 
and institutions, or to the favour of the sovereign 
and his ministers, for that support which she stands 
in such need of ; without which her realms cannot be 
extended, her discoveries rendered beneficial, or her 
votaries supported. That this has been the general 
conviction in all ages, is attested by the uniform 
agreement of the most enlightened governments to 
take their philosophers under their own especial 
"AAS 
