15 



the sciences of chemistry, and mineralog}^, and metallurgy had neither 

 name nor being — when experimental research was unknown, and the raw 

 material of the arts was prepared for subsequent manipulation in no labor- 

 atory but the hidden workshops of nature — when the profoundest philoso- 

 phers were content with resolving all material things into the four elements, 

 and men knew nothing of that subtle analysis and those strange powers, 

 whereby the elements themselves are decomposed, the ingredients of the 

 atmosphere solidified, and granite, porphyry and adamant, resolved into 

 imperceptible gases. And what, sir, have our boasted researches taught us 

 to accomplish in the industrial arts, that the cunning workmen of Egypt, 

 and Tyre, and Greece could not do three thousand years ago? Can our 

 machinery rear loftier piles than the pyramids, or move more ponderoys 

 masses than the stones of Persepolis, or the monohthic temples of Egypt? 

 Is a European princess arrayed in finer webs than the daughter of a Pha- 

 raoh, or decked in colors more gorgeous than the Tyrian purple ? Can 

 the chemistry of England compound more brilliant or more durable pig- 

 ments than those which decorate the walls of the catacombs of the Nile? 

 Can the modern artist, with all the aid of his new magnifiers, rival the mi- 

 croscopic minuteness of some ancient mosaics; or can the glass-workers of 

 our times surpass the counterfeit gems of antiquity ? 



Sir, modern chemistry, metallurgy, and machinery have multiplied, 

 cheapened, and diffused — not improved — the products of industrial art; and 

 herein lies our superiority, not that we can do better^ but, by bringing to 

 our aid the obedient forces of nature, we can d© more, than our predeces- 

 sors. In this point of view, regarding modern improvements in these arts 

 as the great equalizers of the conditions of different ranks in society, no 

 man can estimate them more highly than I do, and I hope soon to have an 

 opportunity of showing that I duly appreciate them. But I must protest 

 against that classification of the objects of human knowledge, which, by 

 giving them an undue pre-eminence, elevates empiricism above true science, 

 prefers matter to mind, and, in its zeal to advarice the means, quite loses 

 sight of the end. 



Sir, these arts are the right hand, not the spirit, of true progressive demo- 

 cracy; they are the Jever that shall move the world, not the immaterial 

 mind that shall guide it. 



Mr. Chairman, at present I neither propose nor expect any modification 

 of this bill. I am content with it as an experiment, though I should prefer 

 the appropriation of the entire income of the fund for one generation — 

 three times only as long as it has now lain idle — to the purpose of found- 

 ing such a library as the world has not yet seen. If I support the bill, I 

 shall support it, I repeat, as an experiment, but in the confident hope 

 that the plan will soon be so changed as to make the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution a fitter representative of a charity which embraces all knowledge as 

 its object, and appoints the whole human race its beneficiaries. 



