No. 216.] 517 



The inquiry of the makers and ministers of the civil law is, what 



can be done better to restrain offenders and leave the innocent un- 

 touched? while the inquiry of the enterprising naturalist is, what can 

 be done to more effectually open new avenues to the grand and inex- 

 haustible storehouse of nature, and to draw therefrom, for the com- 

 mon benefit of all, additional supplies of the positive comforts and 

 conveniences of life? The former are merely holding back the deso- 

 lating Juggernaut of evil; while the latter, thus protected, are rolling 

 on the car of substantial improvement, and filling the land with 

 plenty. 



But, notwithstanding the original object of political and civil in- 

 stitutions was to restrain, and not to produce; to prevent the en- 

 croachments of evil, that good might advance by other agencies, it 

 has, nevertheless, often varied from this, and assumed various other 

 aspects. Sometimes, and in some countries, there has evidently been 

 too much governing ; the reins of government having been drawn 

 with so much rigor as to restrain and prohibit the advance of good, 

 as well as evil. In such instances the government may or may not 

 be a benefit according to the proportion prohibited of each. Some- 

 times, authority has fallen into such vicious hands, and government 

 has become so perverted, as to advance evil and restrain good ; in 

 such cases it is oppressive, worse than anarchy, and a curse instead 

 of a blessing to mankind. At other times, it has been rendered in- 

 strumental, not only in suppressing evil, but also in advancing good, 

 and promoting the prosperity of the country by positive means; not 

 only in arresting and removing the obstruction of evil, that the way 

 might be clear for the progress of improvement, but also by lending 

 the positive aid of its gigantic arm, to speed it onward. 



This last is the highest benefit derived from social compacts, and 

 this is the professed character of the civil and political institutions 

 under which we live. Patent laws, literature funds, common school 

 Tsystems, and many other like provisions, are illustrations in point 



How, then, it may now be asked, can government, or the public 

 in carrying out that object, best aid in advancing science and the 

 useful arts? Here I submit that the most economical and effectual 

 mode in which this can be done, is to extend encouragement to soci- 

 eties and associations of citizens, disconnected from political institu- 

 tions, and formed for the express purpose of doing,. in those depart- 

 ments, what is admitted to be for the common benefit and for public 



