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of learning. There may be, no doubt, still a few pedantic theorists 
who refuse to submit to these laws of investigation, who are collec- 
tors of antiquities in the spirit of a miser, for collecting’s sake, 
without any reference to the end of such collections, the informa- 
tion they may furnish. Who, in the language of Pope, 
‘¢ The inscription value, but the rust adore.” 
Such men may still exist, but they are no longer identified with 
archzological studies; they are no longer able, as they once did, to 
bring reproach upon a noble and ennobling science. 
For the study of Antiquities is the study of man; it brings to 
light the manners and customs of our forefathers; it makes known 
to us the origin of our noblest institutions ; it points out to us the 
causes of those defects in our institutions, which still, perhaps, im- 
pair their usefulness, and retard the progress of society ; it fixes 
the chronology of historical events ; it is essential to the interpreta- 
tion of Holy Scripture, and of all ancient writings; it traces the in- 
fancy of the Arts and Sciences; it maps out the migrations of the 
human race, and records the gradual progress of civilization; in a 
word, it connects, as by a golden chain, the present and the past ; 
and whilst it strikes that chord of our hearts which thrills with re- 
verence for the old, it teaches us to estimate the mind of man, 
and his position in this world between time and eternity, not by 
any one particular phase or period of his history, but by examining 
him in the light as well as in the shade; by regarding him, when, 
ignorant of the use of brass and iron, his weapons were pointed with 
flint alone, and discharged with no greater impetus than that which 
his own feeble arm could bestow,—and again, beholding him direct- 
ing the iron torrent of the mortar battery, or raining a ceaseless 
stream of fire from the broadside of the steam-ship. 
And in the science of Archeology this Academy has made great 
and rapid progress. In the knowledge of the Antiquities and Archi- 
tecture of our own country, this progress is very remarkable. Iremem- 
ber in one of the earlier volumes of our Transactions a paper on an 
ancient monumental inscription in the Irish language, of which a 
tolerably correct engraving is given. That inscription would not now 
present the smallest difficulty to any Irish scholar. It is, in fact, 
perfectly intelligible ; yet the author of the paper alluded to labours, 
