TWENTY-NINTH CONGRESS, 1845-1847. 375 



distributing models of scientific apparatus; and by the publication of 

 lectures, essays, manuals, and treatises. 



Of the various instrumentalities recommended by this noble and 

 imposing scheme, the simplest and most efficient, both as it respects 

 the increase and the diffusion of knowledge, is, in my judgment, the 

 provision for collecting for public use a library, a museum, and a gal- 

 lery of art, and I should personally much prefer that for a reasonable 

 period the entire income of the fund should be expended in carrying 

 out this branch of the plan. 



But in expressing my preference for such a present application of 

 the moneys of the fund, and my belief that we should thus best accom- 

 plish the purposes of the donor, I desire not to be understood as 

 speaking contemptuously of research and experiment in natural 

 knowledge and the economic arts. I have too much both of interest 

 and of feeling staked upon the prosperity of these arts, and they are 

 to me subjects too intrinsically attractive to allow me to be indifferent 

 to any measure which promises to promote their advancement. I am 

 even convinced that their earnest cultivation and extension are abso- 

 lutely indispensable to our national prosperity, our true independence, 

 and almost our political existence, and I am at all times ready to main- 

 tain their claim to all the legislative favor which it is within the power of 

 the General Government to bestow. I would not, therefore, exclude 

 them from the plan of a great national institution for the promotion of 

 all good learning; but I desire to assign them their true place in the scale 

 of human knowledge, and I must be permitted to express my dissent 

 from the doctrine implied by the bill, as originally framed and referred 

 to the special committee, which confines all knowledge, all science, to 

 the numerical and quantitative values of material things. Researches 

 in such branches as were the favored objects of that bill, have in gen- 

 eral little of a really scientific character. Geology, mineralogy, even 

 chemistry, are but assemblages of apparent facts, empirically estab- 

 lished; and this must always be true, to a great extent of every study 

 which rests upon observation and experiment alone. True science is 

 the classification and arrangement of necessary primary truths, accord- 

 ing to their relations with each other, and in reference to the logical 

 deductions which may be made from them. Such science, the only 

 absolute knowledge, is the highest and worthiest object of human 

 inquiry, and must be drawn from deeper sources than the crucible and 

 the retort. 



The bill provides for the construction of buildings, with suitable 

 apartments for a library, and for collections in the various branches 

 of natural knowledge and of art, and directs the annual expenditure 

 of a sum " not exceeding an average of $10,000, for the gradual for- 

 mation of a library composed of valuable works pertaining to ail 

 departments of human knowledge." As 1 have already indicated, I 



