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Philosophical Society, (I believe when he was a printer.) 

 It is now known more by its library than its transactions. 

 Bowditch sustained, for many years, the American Aca- 

 demy of Massachusetts, and he is dead; and we who 

 have numbered among our associates, Clinton and Fulton, 

 and Mitchill and De Witt, are not we failing in the obli- 

 gation consequent to so high a descent. Let it not be so. 

 The boundaries of human knowledge have not yet been 

 franchized, and there are realms before us as wide and 

 as fertile as those which we have left behind. 



But setting aside all hope of a National Academy, and 

 supposing that Agrarian notions are to be introduced into 

 the realm of intellect, (which God forbid, for the sublime 

 sciences of Phrenology and Animal Magnetism, would 

 then cease to exist,) let us look at the offices which free 

 literary associations have hitherto performed, and in what 

 way they may be expected to operate upon us. 



They have hitherto insured the continual extension of 

 science, which would otherwise have become cramped 

 in the schools. They correct individual habits of think- 

 ing. The geometer, the experimenter, the historian, the 

 moralist, the artist and the poet, each of whom individu- 

 ally would treat the same subject differently, according 

 to their respective tastes and occupations, by incorpora- 

 ting in these societies, transfuse their distinguishing qua- 

 lities to each other, and cover the solid material of sci- 

 ence with the graces and beauty of literature and learn- 

 ing. The geometer gives certainty to physics, and 

 prunes the redundant images of false rhetoric— the histo- 

 rian learns to treat events as the philosopher does things- 

 tbe moralist throws round them all the strong tie of duty 

 and obligation, and the artist gains felicity of device and 

 celerity of execution. It is impossible that bodies so con- 

 stituted, should ever adopt a rule or limit for any one of 

 their pursuits. The spirit of system can gain no vantage 

 ground here, without falling 



" Between the pass and free incensed points of mighty opposite*." 



Nor is this all, projects are constantly originating, which 



