1869.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 29 



There are hundreds who from various causes, can assist 

 and support science in no other way than by their purse ; but 

 I would urge that this aid is a duty ; a duty, even enhanced 

 by self-interest, which will certainly not lose its reward. How 

 forcibly and yet how quaintly Bacon says " Knowledge is not a 

 couch for the curious spirit, nor a terrace for the wandering, nor a 

 tower of state for the proud mind, nor a vantage ground for the 

 haughty, nor a shop for profit and sale, but a storehouse for the glory 

 of God, and the endowment of mankind." I know that the standard 

 of mental culture among the educated classes in this country, whether 

 European or Native, is too high, to allow me for a moment to think 

 that they are insensible to these claims of science on their support. I 

 would rather suppose that these claims have not as yet forced them- 

 selves on their notice. I would not degrade knowledge by making 

 it " a shop for profit and sale," in asking the consideration of the 

 individual gains to be acquired by its patronage, but I would recall 

 to you, that science has ever been the most powerful minister of 

 national power, the most effective guide to national wealth, " the true 

 handmaid of religion, the one manifesting the will the other the 

 power of Grod," and I would urge that the neglect to encourage and 

 sustain this, and such other kindred institutions, is the neglect of a duty 

 which we owe to ourselves, to our successors, to our country. It is 

 mainly, gentlemen, by the combined efforts of such Societies, by the co- 

 operation of their members, by the increased interest which attaches to 

 common studies pursued with a common object, by the minor intellec- 

 tual contests which arise from the challenge of mind to mind in the 

 working of such institutions, that the soldiers of science are trained 

 in the use of their weapons, and enabled to go forth, clad in the 

 panoply of scientific truth, as loyal knights to do battle with the 

 terrors of superstition and to scatter the hosts of ignorance. 



We have all, gentlemen, other and more pressing claims on our 

 time ; other and onerous duties to perform. Rarely indeed has it 

 happened, that science has been able to obtain the undivided atten- 

 tion and time of any of her cultivators, but we can contribute, each 

 according to his own ability. There is not one, if he be only willing 

 and humble enough to attempt it in the right spirit, — letting his " mind, 

 like a pure mirror, reflect nature without distortion" — who cannot 



