288 BULLETIN OF THE 



ties, conveniences, or luxuries of life, it meets with encourage- 

 ment and reward. Xot so with the discovery of the incipient 

 principles of science. The investigations which lead to these, 

 receive no fostering care from Government, and are considered 

 by the superficial observer as trifles unworthy the attention of 

 those who place the supreme good in that which immediately 

 administers to the physical needs or luxuries of life. If physical 

 well-being were alone the object of existence, every avenue of 

 enjoyment should be explored to its utmost extent. But he who 

 loves truth for its own sake, feels that its highest claims are 

 lowered and its moral influence marred by being continually 

 summoned to the bar of immediate and palpable utility. Smith- 

 son himself had no such narrow views.* The prominent design 

 of his bequest is the promotion of abstract science. In this 

 respect the Institution holds an otherwise unoccupied place iu 

 this country ; and it adopts two fundamental maxims in its 

 policy ; — first to do nothing with its funds which can be equally 

 well done by other means ; and second to produce results which 

 as far as possible will benefit mankind in general." t 



Congress — naturally with a prevailing tendency to the literary, 

 the showy, and the popular, had (after eight years of dilatory 

 controversy) directed in its organizing Act (sec. 5,) the erection 

 of a building " of suSicient size, and with suitable rooms or halls 

 for the reception and arrangement upon a liberal scale, of objects 

 of natural history including a geological and mineralogical 

 cabinet, also a chemical laboratory, a library, a gallery of art, 

 and the necessary lecture-rooms." By the "9th section of the 

 Act, the Board of Regents were authorized to expend the 

 remaining income of the endowment "as they shall deem best 

 suited for the promotion of the purpose of the testator." Out of 

 an annual income of some 40,000 dollars, the Regents in full 

 accord with their Secretary (whose carefully elaborated programme 

 they officially adopted December 1.3, 1847,) succeeded in credit- 

 ably inaugurating all the objects specified in the charter ; and 

 at the snme time in establishing the system of publication of 

 oriffinnl Memoirs, to which Henry justly attached the first im- 

 portance. 



An incident in itself too slight to produce a visible ripple on 

 the current of Henry's life, is yet too characteristic to be here 



^ * In reErard to tlip valne of scientific truth. SmitliPon in a cotnmnnicn- 

 tion dated .Tune lOtli 1824, has forcibly expressed hi>: strong " conviction 

 that it is in his l-iinirledge that man has found his srreatness and his 

 happiness, the high superiority which he holds over the other animals 

 who inhabit the earth with him ; and consequently that no ignorance is 

 probably without loss to him.no error withont pv?!." (Thomson's Annals 

 of Philnsnphi/, 1824. vol. xxiv. or new series vol. viii. p. 50.) 

 t Smithsonian Report for 1853, p. 8. 



62 



