SCIENTIFIC ADVISERS TO THE GOVERNMENT. 395 



botanists, and draftsmen, each taking some specific 

 department, and prosecuting their researches on 

 recent subjects. These new acquisitions are then 

 published at the sole expense of the government, 

 and in a style of magnificence worthy of a great 

 nation. We need no other proofs of the talent thus 

 called into action, or of the liberality which fostered 

 it, than the splendid and invaluable series of zoolo- 

 gical folios containing the discoveries of Peron, 

 Quoy, and Garnot, Lesson, and those of the na- 

 turalists and artists which accompanied the As- 

 trolobe discovery ship, now in course of pub- 

 lication. 



(271.) It follows, from necessity, that if men of 

 science are once allowed, like other ranks in society, 

 to aspire to the honours of the state, by the patronage 

 and protection of " the fountain of honour," the 

 government of the country possess, in them, the 

 best advisers, and the purest means of information on 

 all scientific questions, that can be found. But we 

 must appreciate excellence, from a conviction of its 

 worth, before we condescend to ask advice of others, 

 and before we can be persuaded that we ourselves 

 are incompetent judges. So long as the influence of 

 scientific knowledge upon the business of life is 

 neither perceived nor valued, so long will its services 

 be neglected, if not despised. On the other hand, 

 when once this connection is seen and acknowledged, 

 our philosophers will be looked upon as fit advisers 

 on all occasions wherein their acquirements bear 

 upon the question at issue. We are again compelled 

 to cite the institutions of other countries as patterns 

 for our own. The members of the French Insti- 



