ADDRESS. ΧΙ 
that the new Attorney-General has accepted his office on the express con- 
dition that the large fees which he derives from patents shall be subject to 
revision. 
The other object contemplated by the British Association. —the organi- 
zation of science as a national institution—is one of a higher order, and not 
limited to individual or even to English interests. It concerns the civilized 
world :—not confined to time, it concerns eternity. While the tongue of 
the Almighty, as Kepler expresses it, is speaking to us in his Word, his 
finger is writing to us in his works; and to acquire a knowledge of these 
works is an essential portion of the great duty of man. Truth secular 
cannot be separated from truth divine ; and if a priesthood has in all ages 
been ordained to teach and exemplify the one, and to maintain, in ages of 
darkness and corruption, the vestal fire upon the sacred altar, shall not an 
intellectual priesthood be organized to develope the glorious truths which 
time and space embosom—to cast the glance of reason into the dark interior 
of our globe, teeming with what was once life—to make the dull eye of man 
sensitive to the planet which twinkles from afar, as well as to the luminary 
which shines from above—and to incorporate with our inner life those won- 
ders of the external world which appeal with equal power to the affections 
and to the reason of immortal natures? If the God of Love is most appro- 
priately worshiped in the Christian Temple, the God of Nature may be 
equally honoured in the Temple of science. Even from its lofty minarets the 
philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer ; and the priest and the sage 
may exchange altars without the compromise of faith or of knowledge. 
Influenced, no doubt, by views like these, Mr. Harcourt has cited, in 
support of this object of the Association, the opinion of a philosopher, 
whose memory is dear to Scotland, and whose judgement on any great ques- 
tion will be everywhere received with respect and attention:—I refer to 
Professor Playfair, the distinguished successor, in our Metropolitan Univers 
sity, of the Gregorys, the Maclaurins, and the Stewarts of former days, 
who, in his able dissertation ‘‘On the Progress of the Mathematical and 
Physical Sciences,” thus speaks of the National Institute of France :— 
** This institution has been of considerable advantage to science. To de- 
tach a number of ingenious men from everything but scientific pursuits— 
to deliver them alike from the embarrassments of poverty or the temptations 
of wealth—to give them a place and station in society the most respectable 
᾿ς and independent—is to remove every impediment, and to add every stimulus to 
exertion. ‘To this institution, accordingly, operating upon a people of great 
genius and indefatigable activity of mind, we are to ascribe that superiority 
in the mathematical sciences which, in the last seventy years, has been so 
~ eonspicuous*.” 
This just eulogy on the National Institute of France, in reference to 
abstract mathematics, may be safely extended to every branch of theoretical 
and practical science; and I have no hesitation in saying, after having re- 
cently seen the Academy of Sciences at its weekly labours, that it is the 
noblest and most effective institution that ever was organized for the pro- 
_ motion of science. Owing to the prevalence of scientific knowledge among 
all classes of the French population, and to their admirable system of ele- 
_ mentary instruction, the advancement of science, the diffusion of knowledge, 
_ and the extension of education, are objects dear to every class of the people. 
_ The soldier as well as the citizen—the Socialist, the Republican, the Royalist 
. * Encyclopedia Britannica, Diss, 3d, sec. 5, p. 500. 
1850. e 
-. 
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