even to the greatest, to render them eminently successful. It is
not permitted to all to be born, like Archimedes, when a science
was to be created; nor, like Newton, to find the system of the
world "without form and void;" and, by disclosing gravitation, to
shed throughout that system the same irresistible radiance as
that with which the Almighty Creator had illumined its material
substance. It can happen to but few philosophers, and but at
distant intervals, to snatch a science, like Dalton, from the
chaos of indefinite combination, and binding it in the chains of
number, to exalt it to rank amongst the exact. Triumphs like
these are necessarily "few and far between;" nor can it be
expected that that portion of encouragement, which a country may
think fit to bestow on science, should be adapted to meet such
instances. Too extraordinary to be frequent, they must be left,
if they are to be encouraged at all, to some direct interference
of the government.

The dangers to be apprehended from such a specific interference,
would arise from one, or several, of the following
circumstances:--That class of society, from whom the government
is selected, might not possess sufficient knowledge either to
judge themselves, or know upon whose judgment to rely. Or the
number of persons devoting themselves to science, might not be
sufficiently large to have due weight in the expression of public
opinion. Or, supposing this class to be large, it might not
enjoy, in the estimation of the world, a sufficiently high
character for independence. Should these causes concur in any
country, it might become highly injurious to commit the
encouragement of science to any department of the government.
This reasoning does not appear to have escaped the penetration of