LITERATURE AND SCIENCE OF ENGLAND. 27 



Stability may be so far regarded as secure. Should 

 the Institution fail, we must dissolve. But it is not 

 equally certain that if the Institution flourish we 

 must flourish also. The Institution will send forth 

 numerous branches, each of which may bear fruit to 

 its honour. Its stock shall, we trust, wax old in the 

 earth, but our little engrafted branch may dwindle, 

 wither, and die. This, however, depends very much 

 upon ourselves. Its fate is more in our own hands 

 than is the fate of the Institution itself in the hands 

 of those who have so carefully tended it. Wlien we 

 have received what the Institution so liberally sup- 

 plies us — its laboratory, its museum, its library, and 

 this convenient place of our assembling — we have no 

 more to ask. We want no patronage, we require no 

 presents, we accumulate no treasures. Yvliat we want 

 is the uncostly offering of literary effort ; and this is 

 a species of sacrifice which draws down a blessing on 

 him that offers it ; which is blest, perhaps, more to 

 him that gives than to those who take ; for no fact in 

 the nature of mind is more evident than that the 

 communication of knowledge multiphes it to him 

 that communicates, and that the orderly arrange- 

 ment of a subject necessary to him who would speak 

 or write upon it, gives a more perfect mastery of that 

 particular subject, and prepares for the more success- 

 ful investigation of another. 



