of the resting places of the association ? Certainly, it must 

 be acknowledged, in reply, there is not one — there is no 

 great fact in the progress of science, that can point to any 

 of those, its temporary abodes, as its cradle. The explosive 

 cotton was not discovered at Southampton, nor the new planet 

 predicted at Cambridge. Making, then, this acknowledgment 

 in the fullest and widest sense, as not even admitting of a 

 solitary exception, does it prove the inutility of such assem- 

 blages ? Unquestionably not. Yet is this the staple argu- 

 ment of those who look upon such associations with 

 unreasoning prejudice, and with groundless suspicion. Now, 

 before I proceed to the formal refutation of this very popular 

 sophism — clear only from its shallowness — one may also ask, 

 in the same spirit of ignorant assumption, Where is the utility 

 of exhibitions of paintings, or of galleries of sculpture ? We 

 may indeed safely say, that no great painting, or, indeed, 

 any painting at all, has ever been painted at one of those 

 exhibitions ; yet, you would, therefore, scarcely say that 

 they are productive of no advantage. What, in like manner, 

 may it be inquired, are the uses of exhibitions of manufac- 

 tures, or of those annual displays of pampered porkers, and 

 bovine obesity ? Surely the objects and purposes of such 

 gatherings are obvious and palpable, and by those means 

 successfully attained, or they would not be persevered in. 

 Far other than mathematical investigations, or chemical re- 

 searches, are the immediate objects of scientific reunions. 

 He must, indeed, be little versed in the processes of the 

 mind, when engaged in the tangled, yet pleasing, paths of 

 philosophical discovery, who expects that those processes can 

 be conducted with any success in crowded assemblies, with 

 excited feelings, and with rapidly alternating trains of thought, 

 suggested by every changing phase of mental association. 

 Far other are their uses. They supply to the solitary and 

 humble searcher after truth, that stimulus to exertion, those 

 motives to labour, which are denied to him from the hope of 



