PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



311 



his exemption from dogmatism, so admirably portrayed in the 

 words of General Sherman,* that he was free from the " arro- 

 gance of wisdom." This was aptly said of a man who, if any 

 in this country, could claim the right to dogmatize. 



The generous traits of his character are most vividly shown in 

 the Report of the Special Committee of the Regents of the 

 Smithsonian Institution (Annual Report, p. 88, Smith. Inst., 

 published in 1858) presented by the late Prof. C. C. Felton on 

 the matters between Samuel F. Morse and Prof. Henry. I refer 

 especially to the letter of the Hon. Charles Mason, Commissioner 

 of the Patent Office, dated March 31, 1856, stating that he was 

 induced to grant the extension of Morse's patent for the telegraph 

 in "accordance with the express recommendation of Professor 

 Henry." It did not require the repeated dogma of the Supreme 

 Court, that " a principle is not patentable ; its practical applica- 

 tion to some useful purpose constitutes the invention" (Brightly's 

 Digest, Vol. I. p. 609; Yol. II. p. 2T5) to cause Professor 

 Henry not to stand in the way of patents in such cases. The 

 bent of his whole life, the acme of his ambition, the goal of his 

 unflagging industry, was the discovery of scientific truths, the 

 extension of the boundaries of human knowledge, and not the 

 acquirement of wealth. Still it was but just that his brilliant 

 discoveries in electro-magnetism, so essential in the invention of 

 the telegraph, should be acknowledged. 



His recent investigations and experiments in sound (as we of 

 this Society have all seen) all bordered on the inventions of the 

 telephone, the phonograph, and the microphone. One of his most 

 valuable suggestions was the publication by the Royal Society 

 of London of the Index of Scientific Papers, recently completed 

 in nine volumes, the preface to which refers to its origin from the 

 recommendation of Professor Henry. 



On the 15th of April last, a month before he died, I had a 

 memorable conversation with him. As he had been denied the 

 privilege, so long his habit and pleasure, of attending the meet- 

 ings of this Society, I recounted for his amusement, at his request, 

 a few of the items of one of our recent meetmgs, in which the 

 fact that the motion of the inner satellite of Mars is more rapid 

 than the motion of the planet, was the topic. And I referred to 



* His Address at Princeton, June 19, 1878. 



