.purposes of the donor, I desire not to be understood as speaking contemp- 

 tuously of research and experiment in natural knowledge and the economic 

 arts. I have too much both of interest and of feeling staked upon the proa^ 

 perity of these arts, and they are to me subjects too intrinsically attractive^ 

 to allow me to be indifferent, to any measure w^hich promises to promote 

 their advancement. I am even convinced, that their earnest cultivation and 

 extension are absolutely indispensable to our national prosperit}^, our true 

 independence, and almost our political existence; and I am at all times- 

 ready to maintain their claim to all the legislative favor which it is within, 

 the power of the General Government to bestow. I would not, therefore j, 

 exclude them from the plan of a great national institution for the promotida 

 ,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 nu- 

 merical and quantitative values of material things. Researches in such 

 branches as were the favored objects of that bill, have in general little of a. 

 really scientific character. Geology, mineralogy, even chemistry, are but 

 assemblages of apparent facts empirically established; 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, according 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 apart- 

 ments 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 ten thousand dollars, for the gradual formation of 

 a library composed of valuable Avorks pertaining to all departments of hu- 

 man knowledge." As I have already indicated, I consider this the most 

 valuable feature of the plan, though I think the amount unwisely re- 

 stricted; and I shall confine the few observations I design to submit respect- 

 ing the bill chiefly to the consideration of this single provision. I had 

 originally purposed to examine the subject from quite a different point of 

 view, but the eloquent remarks of the Chairman of the Special Committee^, 

 (Mr. Owen,) which seem to be intended as an argument rather against 

 this provision than in favor of the bill, and as a reply to the able and bril- 

 liant speech of a distinguished member of another branch of Congress^^, 

 npon a former occasion, (Mr. Choate,) has induced me to take a some- 

 what narrower range than I should otherwise have done. I wish, sir, that 

 Senator were here to rejoii^ in his own proper person, to the beautiful 

 speech of the gentleman from Indiana, who seems rather to admire the 

 rhetoric, than to be>convinced by the logic, of the eloquent orator to whom 

 ;I refer. In that case , sir, I think my friend from Indiana, trenchant as are biff 

 own weapons, would feel, as many have felt before, that the poHshed blade 

 of the gentleman, who lately did such honor to Massachusetts in the Senate 

 of the United States, is not the less keen, because, like Harmodius and; 

 Aristogiton, he wraps it in sprays of myrde. : 



It has been objected by some, that the appropriation is too large for the- 

 j)urpose expressed — ^'The gradual formation of a library composed of valvi- 



