ON THE WORKS AND CHARACTER OF JAMES 

 SMITHSON. 



BY J. K. McD. IRBY.* 



It is the characteristic of modern biography that it seeks 

 to know the personalities of men. It has ceased altogether 

 to be a mere chronology. It attempts to introduce to us its 

 subjects as we would have known them in actual life and to 

 make them the people of our inward world. 



Who that has known the splendid benefits derived from 

 Smithson's great foundation has not felt a desire to know 

 more nearly him from whom the gift proceeded ? Who has 

 not been impressed with his persevering philanthropy, when, 

 failing to accomplish his object through the Royal Society 

 of Great Britain, he turned his face to the New World and 

 laid up his name in the new order of things and men ? 

 Who has not discerned in this the spirit of a real benefactor 

 of mankind, and not that of a vain builder of his own monu- 

 ment. It is my pleasant task to show something of his 

 way, his work, and his thought. 



Smithson's actual additions to knowledge are not great, 

 but they are distinct. It was his misfortune to work at two 

 sciences, chemistry and mineralogy, which were yet in their 

 infancy, and at a third, geology, which, though pregnant to 

 the birth, was still unborn, in a true sense. In the dark 

 beginnings of things, when both ideas and methods are im- 

 perfect, it is seldom that the bewildered gropings of men 

 become valued heirlooms to posterity. 



We could wish Smithson's name to have been coupled 

 with some great discovery, or with the apprehension of 

 some far-reaching law that would have formed a worthy in- 

 scription for the portal of his institution. Though this be 

 not gratified, we shall find that he appreciated the great 

 problems before him and attempted their solution ; that he 

 knocked earnestly and worthily at the portal of great knowl- 

 edge, and that although it was denied him to be the first to 

 enter into the greater chambers, he was, nevertheless, no 

 unworthy seeker. When we have caught the utterances of 



* Prepared at the request of the Institution, September, 1878. 



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