TROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 429 



American Institute, Polytechnic Association, ? 



October 24, 1861. S 



Prof. Mason in the chair. 



Clinton Roosevelt delivered an essay in which he undertook to 

 demonstrate the analogy between physical and metaphysical laws. 

 All order in the Universe, he said, was the result of positive 

 forces. Men did wrong because it was opposed to their present 

 interest to do right. No matter how certain the ultimate pun- 

 ishment, if it was only far removed to the future, they would con- 

 tinue to do wrong. The remedy proposed was so to construct 

 society that it would be their highest self-interest to do right. 



PREMIUMS offered FOR INVENTIONS BY THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



The Chairman. — It will be recollected by most of you that 

 some years ago a committee was raised in the American Institute 

 to consider the future labors and prospects of the institution. A 

 report from that committee underwent considerable discussion, 

 the result of which was that the minds of a great many members 

 were not prepared to adopt the suggestion in that report. But 

 as Lord Bacon says: "In all your inventions imitate time, which 

 changeth all things, yet so gradually that no man seeth precisely 

 where the change taketh place." So time has been modifying the 

 action and labors of the American Institute, and the result has 

 been the gradual carrying out of that report. In that report it 

 was suggested that probably fairs had had their day of being 

 profitable to the Institute, and that until some great exhibition 

 should be made that would draw from other portions of the 

 world, as well as ours, exhibitions of novelty in the applied 

 sciences, there would be no revival. In May last, in view of the 

 great civil disturbances, and especially in view of the great 

 disturbance of the mechanic arts and the actual removal of an 

 immense body of our mechanics from the city, the Institute 

 passed a resolution leaving it to the discretion of the board of 

 managers whether they should attempt to hold a fair of any 

 kind during the current year. After much discussion, the board 

 came to the conclusion that it was expedient to adopt a substi- 

 tute for the fair. That substitute will be developed in a paper I 

 am now about to read. 



The Chairman having read the paper,* 



* This paper in its amended form will be found in the proceedings of 31st October. 



