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ADDEESS 
 
 OF 
 
 PROFESSOR BENJAMIN PEIRCE, 
 
 PEESroENT OF THE AMEEICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE YEAR 1853, 
 
 ON EETIKING FKOM THE DnTIES OP PBESIDBNT. . 
 
 [Printed by Order of the Association.] 
 
 Me. President and Gentlemen of the American Association for 
 THE Advancement of Science : — 
 
 In most offices, the duties terminate with the office, and the 
 thing of the past, the ex-officer, is to the present an unknown 
 quantity. But it is not so with your President. Science, 
 with its time-annihilating power, which gives life to the fossil, 
 which hurries the embryo future into premature birth, which 
 ventures beyond the grave even to the foot of the invisible 
 throne, sternly drags forward its reluctant presidents to their 
 hardest trial when they have ceased to be, to a judgment after 
 death severer than that of Rhadamanthus. This calling out 
 of the actor upon the stage after the night of performance, 
 when the blood is no longer warm, is all the worse to him 
 who has never before made a set speech, all whose habits of 
 thought are unknown to eesthetic display, and the Arctic lati- 
 tudes of whose frigid studies are impenetrable to the God of 
 eloquence and to the Muses who vibrate the silver-toned chords 
 of human sympathy. 
 
 Geometry, to which I have devoted my life, is honored 
 with the title of the Key of the Sciences ; but it is the key of 
 1 
 
>i ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 an ever-open door, which refuses to be shut, and through which 
 the whole world is crowding, to make free, in unrestrained 
 license, with the precious treasures within, thoughtless both of 
 lock and key, of the door itself, and even of science, to which it 
 owes such boundless possessions, this New World included. 
 The door is wide open, and all may enter; but all do not 
 enter with equal thoughtlessness. There are a few who won- 
 der, as they approach, at the exhaustless wealth, as the sacred 
 shepherd wondered at the burning bush of Horeb, which was 
 ever burning and never consumed. Casting their shoes from 
 off their feet, and the world's iron-shod doubts from their un- 
 derstanding, these children of the faithful take their first step 
 upon the holy ground with reverential awe, and advance al- 
 most with timidity, fearful, as the signs of Deity break upon 
 them, lest they shall be brought face to face with the Al- 
 mighty. They are the searchers after truth, and do not pass 
 the door or the key without careful scrutiny. 
 
 The key ! It is of wonderful construction, with its infinity 
 of combination, and its unlimited capacity to fit every lock, 
 however varied in form and size ; it closes the massive arches 
 which guard the vaults whence the mechanic arts supply the 
 warehouses of commerce, and it opens the minute cabinet in 
 which the queen of the fairies protects her microscopic jewels ; 
 it is the great master-key, which unlocks every door of knowl- 
 edge, and without which no discovery — no discovery which 
 deserves the name, which is law and not isolated fact — has 
 been or ever can be made. Fascinated by its symmetry, the 
 geometer may, at times, have been too exclusively engrossed 
 with his science, forgetful of its applications; he may have 
 exalted it into his idol, and worshipped it; he may have de- 
 graded it into his toy, and childishly amused himself with the 
 singular shapes which it would assume, when he should have 
 been hard at work with it, using it for the benefit of mankind 
 and the glory of his Creator. I have seen a watchmaker, who 
 came into possession of a remarkable chronometer, which was 
 made by a prince of the craft, — by one who only made a single 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. 6 
 
 chronometer io a year; but that single watch was a master- 
 piece of art, and in every part a model of exquisite workman- 
 ship. The single-hearted watchmaker would sit and gaze at 
 the neaf key of his chronometer by the hour together, wasting 
 in admiration the precious time, which his faithful watch con- 
 tinued to measure. With the same simplicity of devotion, the 
 mathematician, unable to resist her charms, may ennbrace his 
 science too ardently, when it lies close to his heart ; and thus 
 her integrity may be suspected. But ascend with me above 
 the dust, above the cloud, to the realms of the higher geometry, 
 where the heavens are never obscured ; where there is no im- 
 pure vapor and no delusive or imperfect observation ; where 
 the new truths are already arisen, while they are yet dimly 
 dawning upon the earth below; where the earth is a little 
 planet ; where the sun has dwindled to a star ; where all the 
 stars are lost in the Milky- Way to which they belong ; where 
 the Milky- Way is seen floating through space, like any other 
 nebula ; where the whole great girdle of the nebulse has dimin- 
 ished to an atom, and has become as readily and completely 
 submissive to the pen of the geometer, and the slave of his for- 
 mula, as the single drop, which falls from the cloud, instinct 
 with all the forces of the material world. Try with me the pre- 
 cision of measure with which the universe has been meted out ; 
 observe how exactly all the parts are fitted to the whole and to 
 each other, and then declare who was present in the council- 
 chamber when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth. 
 
 Begin with the heavens themselves ; see how precisely the 
 motions of the firmament have endured through the friction 
 of the ages ; observe the exactness of the revolutions of the 
 stars ; if these mighty orbs cannot resist the law, what can 
 the atom do ? Let, then, the resources of art be exhausted in 
 this scrutiny. Let neither time nor labor nor money be 
 spared. A slight defect of motion is just detected ; it is slight, 
 very slight, bat it is unquestionable. We dare not hide it 
 out of sight. Science must admit this triumph of art, and 
 be true even if the stars are false. The names of fixed star 
 
4 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 and pole-star must not be suffered to impose upon the trusting 
 world, and guide it in a delusive chase after an ignis fatuus. 
 Geometry I to the rescue ! Geometry is at her post, faith- 
 ful among the faithless. The pen is at work, the midnight oil 
 consumed, the magic circles drawn by the wise men of the 
 East, and the wizard logarithm summoned from the North. 
 The tables are turned. The defect of motion is transformed 
 into the discovery of a new law. It becomes the proof of the 
 atmosphere to bend the ray from its course as it shoots down, 
 laden with the image of Arcturus and the sweet influences 
 of the Pleiades ; it becomes the proof of the moving light, 
 of the unseen planet, and of the invisible star, and hence a 
 new proof of the precision of the measure. Honor to Bradley, 
 to Bessel, to Adams, and to Leverrier! The stars are not 
 false. Question them as you may, they give the same evi- 
 dence, and do not contradict each other's testimony. They 
 tell us that ours is not the central sun, and that we are mov- 
 ing in the procession of the stars ; they tell us that we move 
 among the others, towards the constellation of Hercules, so 
 that, while we grow in wisdom, we approach the strong man's 
 home. They tell us that we are moving at such a rate, that the 
 distance from star to star is but just a good geological day's 
 journey; and hereby they confirm the story which is written 
 upon the crust of our globe, and prove that the earth and the 
 skies have been measured out with the same unit of measure. 
 Descend from the infinite to the infinitesimal. Long be- 
 fore Bacon and Galileo, before observation had begun to 
 penetrate the veil under which Nature has hidden her mys- 
 teries, the restless mind sought some principle of power, strong 
 enough, and of sufficient variety, to collect and bind together 
 all the parts of a world. This seemed to be found, where 
 one might least expect it, in abstract number. Everywhere 
 the exactest numerical proportion was seen to constitute the 
 spiritual element of the highest beauty. It was the harmony 
 of music, and the music of song; the fastidious eye of the 
 Athenian required the delicately curved outlines of the temple 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 in which he worshipped his goddess to conform to the exact 
 law of the hyperbola, and he traced the graceful features of her 
 statue from the repulsive wrinkles of Arithmetic. Through- 
 out nature, the omnipresent beautiful revealed an all-pervad- 
 ing language spoken to the human mind, and to man's 
 highest capacity of comprehension. By whom was it spoken ? 
 Whether by the gods of the ocean and the land, by the ruling 
 divinities of the sun, moon, and stars, or by the nymphs of 
 the forest and the dryads of the fountain, it was one speech, 
 and its written cipher was cabalistic. The cabala were 
 those of number, and even if they transcended the gematric 
 skill of the Rabbi and the hieroglyphical learning of the 
 priest of Osiris, they were, distinctly and unmistakably, ex- 
 pressions of thought, uttered to mind by mind ; they were the 
 solutions of mathematical problems of extraordinary com- 
 plexity. The bee of Hymettus solved its great problem of 
 isoperimetry on the morning of creation ; and the sword 
 which threatened the life of Damocles vibrated the elliptic 
 functions two thousand years before Legendre, Abel, and 
 Jacobi had gained immortality by their discussion. The very 
 spirits of the winds, when they were sent to carry the grateful 
 harvest to the thirsting fields of Calabria, did not forget the 
 geometry which they had studied in the caverns of ^olus, and 
 of which the geologist is daily discovering their diagrams. 
 When they traversed the forest, they vibrated the bending 
 branches and the hanging vines into every variety of elastic 
 and catenarian curve ; as they passed over the city, they 
 wreathed the rising smoke into spirals, at which the ancient 
 philosopher could only gaze in admiration, as it ascended 
 with double curvature in its lofty exponential path, and was 
 lost to computation ere it vanished from sight ; and even 
 when, forgetting their beneficent mission, they raged, that 
 awful night at sea, in a fearful struggle with gravitation for 
 the dominion of the ocean, amidst the shrieks of the drown- 
 ing sailor, they heaped up the waves into such majestic moun- 
 tains, that the genius of the storm thundered his approbation, 
 
b ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 and man's analysis shrunk from the investigation of the 
 strange forms, not daring even to give them a name. 
 
 Ancient philosophy, perceiving this power of number, did 
 homage to it in all the simplicity, earnestness, and truthfulness 
 which distinguished the early thinkers. Pythagoras and Plato, 
 the founders of pure mathematics, turned their search inward 
 to find in their own minds the origin of that force, which a 
 universe of phenomena could only reveal in its effects, but 
 not in its essence. They found there a principle, capable of 
 ruling, restraining, and satisfying the extravagant fancy, the 
 ardent imagination, and the licentious will, and of reducing 
 all the faculties to harmonious and consistent action. Its dig- 
 nified exterior was cold and forbidding, and marked with the 
 gloomy inflexibility of the representative of justice, rather 
 than with the gracious supremacy of a sovereign. Boldly 
 penetrating it, they were rewarded with visions of sublime 
 contemplation, such as the world had never yet beheld ; and 
 the majestic glories which surround the throne of number, 
 to those few who are permitted to behold them, took their 
 hearts captive. In the intensity of their enthusiasm, they 
 unconsciously overstepped the bounds of human knowledge, 
 and strove to grope their way where the torch of observation 
 was not yet lighted. They sought in the monad, the duad, 
 and the triad, the mysteries of the Divine nature ; in the per- 
 fect number, the archetype of the highest good ; and in such 
 simple numerical ratios as their unaided reason could devise, 
 the complicated logic of all life. The school-boy of the nine- 
 teenth century can detect and ridicule their errors, but the 
 lovers of truth will always revere their memories, and the great 
 discoverers will never cease to find in their magnificent inves- 
 tigations the elements of further progress. Ay ! more than 
 this ! Modern science has realized some of the most fanciful 
 of the Pythagorean and Platonic doctrines, and thereby justi- 
 fied the divinity of their spiritual instincts. Is it not signifi- 
 cant of the nature of the creative intellect, the simplicity of 
 the great laws of force ? the fact that the same curious series 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. 7 
 
 of numbers is developed by the growing plant which assisted 
 in marshalling the order of the planets ? and that the marriage 
 of the elements cannot be consummated except in strict 
 accordance with the laws of definite proportion ? This last 
 extraordinary discovery has rescued chemistry for ever from 
 the blighting thrall of superstition, and, elevating it to the 
 rank of a science, has endowed it with the rudiments of a 
 peculiar speech. The promise has just been given, by one of 
 our own number, of a large extension of this fruitful law ; 
 Young America has given the pledge, and we have faith in 
 her chivalry that she will redeem it; we may then hope that 
 the atomic force will submit to some Newton of chemistry, 
 and the formula of the crystal become as legible as that of 
 the solar system. In all parts of the physical world, in 
 sound and light, in electricity and magnetism, in the elements 
 of the air and the ocean, the same precision is everywhere 
 predominant. The tints of the morning cloud reflecting the 
 smiles of Aurora, and the angry flash of the tempest, are 
 equally exact expressions of the unwavering formula ; and the 
 geological Titans, sons of Vulcan and Neptune, who once 
 piled Pelion upon Ossa and strewed the earth with the frag- 
 ments of their battles, and more recently have arrayed the 
 armies of science in unnatural conflict, are at length bound to 
 the primitive rock of immutable law, by the same strong, em- 
 bracing, golden chain of inductive argument, with which our 
 Franklin " dragged the thunderer down to earth." 
 
 Every new discovery in science has now become a new 
 conquest to geometry. Quantitative analysis is regarded as 
 the only safe instrument of research, and the question of the 
 " What kind ? " is universally merged into that of the " How 
 much ? " This is not limited to the physical sciences ; even 
 in politics, the statesman, finding in each land all kinds of 
 men arid every element of public economy, is forced to inquire 
 how much there is of each, and to be guided, in the conduct 
 of government, by the. figures of statistics. Can it, then, be 
 otherwise than that the science which takes especial charge 
 
8 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 of the theory and laws of exact measurement should be of 
 universal application ? However distorted it may be in its 
 technical forms, and diverted from its natural position by the 
 injudicious zeal of its votaries, its fundamental principles are 
 those of sound logic and good common-sense, and whatever 
 it touches it elucidates and illuminates. There are many 
 questions in which it might be advantageously consulted fur- 
 ther than has yet been done, and it appears to me that the 
 difficulty in regard to the claims to discovery would often be 
 settled by its judicious application, although it might some- 
 times, perhaps, be tempted to divide an ill-begotten child with 
 the sword of justice, so as to give each claimant his worthless 
 share. But it would grant no countenance to that miserable 
 spirit of scientific adventure, which, by a moderate fertility in 
 suggesting possible solutions of an abstruse problem, lays 
 the foundation for a claim adverse to the just rights of him 
 who, by exact and profound investigation, has demonstrated 
 the true doctrine. By the severity of the standard which it 
 would establish, it might even compel science to renounce 
 some of its pretended acquisitions. In Astronomy, for in- 
 stance, it must be conceded that Saturn and Jupiter, Mars 
 and Venus, are yet subject to unexplained irregularities of 
 motion ; that the theory of the asteroids has not advanced 
 beyond the earliest stage of arithmetic ; that the rings of Saturn 
 are connected with their primary by a force not less myste- 
 rious than that which holds its golden representative upon 
 the finger of the fair betrothed ; and that the laws under 
 which the tides obey the attractions of the sun and moon are 
 quite undeveloped. The remarkable researches upon this 
 subject made in the Coast Survey, have established that here 
 still remains another world to be conquered, worthy the ambi- 
 tion of the Alexander of Geodesy. 
 
 There is, however, a broader basis than that of numerical 
 accuracy for maintaining the central position of Geometry 
 among the sciences. It is that of form ; the grand type of 
 structural combination. This element may often be deficient 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 in the technical mathematician, but it. is the characteristic 
 feature of the imperial intellects of geometry, of Archimedes 
 and Hipparchus, Newton and Leibnitz, Laplace and Lagrange, 
 Monge and Gauss. It equally belongs to great ability in 
 every department of knowledge and art, and directs all suc- 
 cessful effort, from the brilliant campaign of the conqueror to 
 the invention of the printing-press. It is the alpha and omega 
 of intelligible speech, the architect of the poetic temple, the 
 founder of empires, and the maker of constitutions. It is the 
 power of combining innumerable details into a consistent 
 whole, the highest exertion of human genius, and that which 
 approaches nearest to the act of creation. It deciphers the 
 hieroglyphic of events, and, uniting the present with the past 
 and the future, it is the veracity of history and the inspi- 
 ration of prophecy. It planned the vast fabric of the Reforma- 
 tion, and it touched with its miraculous finger the eyeballs of 
 that statesman who foresaw, in its full development, the 
 mighty tree which now overshadows this continent, when it 
 was concentrated in the seed of liberty, and just germinating 
 in the blood of the patriot. But with all its grandeur, this 
 principle is subject to the laws of necessity and exactness, 
 and when it ventures to build upon the sands of hypothesis 
 and speculation, or the quicksands of a priori argument, the 
 fall of its cathedral is certain, and only hastened by the weight 
 of the massive towers. The rash system of philosophy which, 
 despising the science it cannot comprehend, presumes to soar 
 capriciously above the well-established theories of inductive 
 demonstration, must melt its ill-cemented pinions as it ap- 
 proaches the source of truth, and sink, like Icarus, into deserved 
 ridicule and contempt. The imagination of the immortal 
 Kepler himself would have wasted all its strength in a wild 
 and whimsical race with the mysteries of cosmography, if it 
 had not been restrained from its extravagance by his sincere 
 love of truth, and soberly harnessed to the observations of Ty- 
 cho. The gaudy firmament of the artificial globe of the 
 astronomer's studio is a singular illustration of the impossi- 
 2 
 
10 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 bility of devising a well-ordered plan, when there are no proper 
 materials for classification and distribution. For more than 
 twice the period of the millennium, the most savage beasts 
 and horrible giants have been sporting upon it with infants 
 and gentle maidens, and have clustered the stars in the min- 
 gled confusion of the wilderness and the nursery. The ad- 
 ditions which modern taste and sycophancy have made to 
 this curiosity-shop have not diminished its peculiar interest, 
 increased its classic elegance, or relieved the perplexed inter- 
 weaving of the constellations. 
 
 But the exactness required in the development of form is 
 that of unity, order, and continuity, more than that of num- 
 ber ; and it is better expressed in the curve than in the formula. 
 Such accuracy may be developed in its highest perfection, in 
 minds to which the processes of arithmetical computation are 
 utterly distasteful. There is one, whom I am proud to call 
 my friend, to whom I have more than once tried to communi- 
 cate some conception of algebraic analysis and its modes of 
 research. Whether the fault was in the obscurity of the 
 teacher, or the too great density of the pupil's brain, my excess 
 of modesty dares not decide. Whatever was the cause, the 
 attempt was a total failure ; I could not bring my friend to 
 comprehend the product of two by two, when both the twos 
 were negative ; and I am firmly convinced that he would rather 
 have yielded his fine teeth to the dentist, than his radical and 
 absurd repugnance to the extraction of an impossible root. 
 But of all men who ever set foot upon American soil, there 
 is not one who has made so many and so great scientific dis- 
 coveries as this man ; there is not one who has opened so 
 many new treasures of knowledge; and, paradoxical as it 
 may seem, he has unlocked every door with the key of geom- 
 etry. How was it, for instance, that he drew the outline of 
 the fossil fish, from that of the single scale ? and how did it 
 happen that the original lithograph, when it was discovered, 
 was identical with his design ? When he was challenged be- 
 fore the British Association to portray the form of fish proper 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. H 
 
 to a geological stratum in which he did not know that one 
 was found, what power guided the hand which held the 
 chalk ? And when the cloth was removed, which, to his sur- 
 prise, concealed the newly discovered fish, how and where 
 came the extraordinary coincidence ? and whence did they 
 acquire the selfsame lineaments with the drawing upon the 
 blackboard ? To what other science than that of form is 
 such a wonderful knowledge of form to be attributed? And 
 are we not sorely tempted to confound all scientific distinc- 
 tions, and claim him, even against his will, as one of the 
 greatest of geometers, who has advanced the science far be- 
 yond the highest flight of the transcendental formula into the 
 domain of the organic kingdom ? When he was commis- 
 sioned by the illustrious chief of the Coast Survey to examine 
 the reefs of Florida, by what a consummate mathematical 
 logic did he trace back their history for more than a thousand 
 centuries, to the probable beginning of the present geological 
 period I 
 
 Of the many difficult questions with which science is dis- 
 turbed, none are so serious as those which are connected with 
 religion. There are men, and pious men too, who seem hon- 
 estly to think that science and religion are naturally opposed 
 to each other; than which I cannot conceive a more monstrous 
 absurdity. How can there be a more faithless species of infi- 
 delity, than to believe that the Deity has written his word 
 upon the material universe and a contradiction of it in the 
 Gospel? And is it possible that such a belief has ever been 
 seriously professed ? Or is the other alternative less unrea- 
 sonable, that the serpent has wound its coils around the tree 
 of knowledge, and that the alluring fruit which has been drop- 
 ping at the foot of man from the days of Adam to those of 
 Newton, is poisoned to its core ? Shall we believe that the 
 voices of Nature are the songs of the Siren and the artful 
 temptations of the Devil, to divert man from his devotions ? 
 If this be so, how singularly forgetful has the Enemy been of 
 his interests, or how divided against himself and his own 
 
12 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 household, that he is thus praising God and magnifying him 
 for ever, " in all the works of creation ; in the sun and moon, 
 and the stars of heaven ; in the showers and dew ; in the 
 winds ; the fire and heat ; the winter and summer ; the light 
 and darkness ; the lightnings and clouds ; the mountains and 
 hills ; and all the green things upon the earth " ! that he is 
 " for ever blessing the Lord in the whales and all that move in 
 the waters ; in the fowls of the air ; and in the beasts and 
 cattle " ! Can it be that this universal anthem, this all- 
 resounding chorus of hallelujah, is a cunning device of hell to 
 gain the souls of men ? and that the arch -hypocrite stole from 
 the fire upon the tongues of the holy children whom he dared 
 not touch ? and that he has ventured behind the altar into 
 the inmost sanctuary of the church, in the garb of a high- 
 priest, and inscribed the sublime canticle upon the book of 
 prayer, with the pen which was dipped in the blood of Christ ? 
 Or is it to be supposed that unconscious matter has abjured 
 its Creator, and, having no will, has fallen with the infinite 
 sin of man's rebellion, melting in the fires of its volcano the 
 impress of the seal of approbation which was imprinted on 
 the day of creation ? Such absurd hypotheses may,- in this 
 age, be left to their own refutation. 
 
 There is proof enough furnished by every science, but by 
 none more than by geometry, that the world to which we 
 have been allotted is peculiarly adapted to our minds, and 
 admirably fitted to promote our intellectual progress. There 
 can be no reasonable doubt that it was part of the Creator's 
 plan. How easily might the whole order have been trans- 
 posed ! How readily might we have been assigned to some 
 complicated system which our feeble and finite powers could 
 not have unravelled! to some one, perchance, of the stars, in 
 the immense cluster of Hercules, where " the countless and 
 unending orbs" are "in mazy motion intermingled," and 
 where, 
 
 " Above, below, around, 
 
 The circling systems form 
 
 A wilderness of harmonv," 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. 13 
 
 the sound of which would never have penetrated to the deso- 
 late heart of man, nor have stkred his motionless spirit to a 
 divine thought! 
 
 What a contrast to this humanly incomprehensible world 
 is that in which we have our being, where the obvious sim- 
 plicity and regularity of the daily phenomena invite our con- 
 templation with so fine and irresistible a persuasion ; where 
 all the developments of art and nature occur in a happy and 
 consistent gradation, ascending amid innumerable forms of 
 beauty to the temple of science I Had it been the sole object 
 of the physical universe to contribute to our intellectual nutri- 
 ment, its arrangements could not have been more skilfully 
 contrived. The angel of the Lord is ever sent with the mes- 
 sage of new truth at the time when it is most welcome, when 
 the heart of philosophy is heavy with the obscure mists which 
 hang over the paths of knowledge, or when the faith of the 
 fainting world requires the reviving influence of some brilliant 
 discovery. How wonderful are the relations in the progress 
 of the observing and the abstract sciences ! With what a 
 profound harmony do they sustain their several parts in the 
 heaven-born symphony ! Attracted by the symmetry of a few 
 graceful curves, geometry undertook their investigation, and 
 prosecuted the study of their curious and intricate properties, 
 until ridicule threatened to point at such a useless expendi- 
 ture of labor. But when, in the course of its revolving cycles, 
 astronomy had grown to its grand era, it began by preaching 
 to the astounded doctors of theology the amazing fact that 
 these selfsame curves have been drawn, by the Creator's own 
 hand, from the beginning of time, in the paths of the planet, 
 the comet, and our own fixed earth ; and thenceforth the 
 treatise upon conic sections has become a chapter of the celes- 
 tial Principia. And so it has ever been ; in the ambitious 
 flights to which geometry has been impelled by its impatience 
 of the restraints of observation, it has never soared above the 
 Almighty presence. And so it must ever be ; the true thought 
 of the created mind must have had its origin from the Crea- 
 
14 ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 tor; but with him thought is reality. It must then be that 
 the loftiest conceptions of transcendental mathematics have 
 been outwardly formed, in their complete expression and 
 manifestation, in some region or other of the physical world ; 
 and that there must always be interwoven with the discoveries 
 of observation these striking coincidences of human thought 
 and nature's law. They are the reflections of the divine image 
 of man's spirit from the clear surface of the eternal fountain 
 of truth. Is then religion so false to God as to avert its face 
 from science ? Is the Church willing to declare a divorce of 
 this holy marriage tie ? Can she afford to renounce the exter- 
 nal proofs of a God, having sympathy with man? Dare she 
 excommunicate science, and answer at the judgment for the 
 souls which are thus reluctantly compelled to infidelity ? We 
 reject the authority of the blind Scribes and Pharisees, who 
 have hidden themselves from the light of heaven under such a 
 darkness of bigotry. We claim our just rights and our share 
 in the Church. The man of science is a man, and knows sin 
 as much as other men, and equally with other men he needs 
 the salvation of the Gospel. We acknowledge that the reve- 
 lations of the physical world are addressed to the head, and 
 do not minister to the wants of the heart ; we acknowledge 
 that science has no authority to interfere with the Scriptures 
 and perplex the Holy Writ with forced and impossible con- 
 structions of language. This admission does not derogate 
 from the dignity" of science; and we claim that the sanctity 
 of the Bible is equally undisturbed by the denial that it was 
 endowed with authority over the truths of physical science. 
 But we, nevertheless, as sons of men, claim our share in its 
 messages of forgiveness, and will not be hindered of our inher- 
 itance by the unintelligible technicalities of sectarianism ; as 
 children, we kneel to the Church, and implore its sustenance, 
 and entreat the constant aid and countenance of those great 
 and good men who are its faithful servants and its surest sup- 
 port, whose presence and cheering sympathies are a perpetual 
 benediction, and among whom shine the brightest lights of 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. 15 
 
 science as well as of religion. Moreover, as scientific men, 
 we need the Bible to strengthen and confirm our faith in a 
 supreme intellectual Power, to assure us that we are not im- 
 posing our forms of thought upon a fortuitous combination 
 of dislocated atoms, but that we may study His works humbly, 
 hopefully, and trusting that the treasury is not yet exhausted, 
 but that there is still left an infinite vein of spiritual ore 
 to be worked by American intellect. 
 
 Gentlemen of the American Association, I cannot conclude 
 without a few words to recall our duty to the country to 
 which we owe our allegiance. We must despise the base 
 servility to foreign superiority, which affects to look down from 
 the heights of the cosmopolite upon the duty of patriotism, 
 and scorn it as an abomination. We must love our country 
 with the same devoted, noble, and generous love which in- 
 spired the lives of Niebuhr and Arago, of Bowditch and our 
 late lamented Walker, which is the living fountain of the 
 labors of men like Humboldt, Henry, and Bache, which won 
 for Franklin the affection, admiration, and reverence of France, 
 and without which there can be no worthy respect and esteem 
 for the labors of the men of other nations. The heart which 
 is too small to hold its own country cannot assume to em- 
 brace the whole world, and still less to contain a science. Of 
 all the virtues, patriotism is the least selfish, and that which is 
 most kindred to the grand sentiments of the heroic soul. It 
 repels foreign arrogance with dignified contempt, its proud 
 spirit rejoices to do homage to true greatness wherever it may 
 be found, and it frankly opens its hospitable door to the recep- 
 tion of the learned guest of every land. It was the larger half 
 of the greatest name in history, and from the tomb of Wash- 
 ington it invokes us to be faithful to posterity. 
 
 The time is ripe for some important improvement in the 
 public condition of science and its relations to government. 
 For the first time in the history of the republic, "the men of 
 genius of our country, who, by their inventions and discoveries 
 in science and art, have contributed largely to the improve- 
 
ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 
 
 ments of the age, without in many instances securing for 
 themselves anything like an adequate reward," have been 
 commended to the favorable consideration of Congress by our 
 Chief Magistrate. For this great and good word, let the 
 benedictions of science rest upon his head. It is now our 
 fault if the occasion be not properly improved. No govern- 
 ment, in proportion to its opportunities, has surpassed our 
 own in its readiness to promote science. The Coast Survey, 
 the National Observatory, the Nautical Almanac, the military 
 and naval academies, the expeditions for astronomical and 
 other scientific purposes, and the munificent grants for spe- 
 cial researches, are conclusive evidence of the willingness to 
 advance high and useful forms of philosophical inquiry. The 
 confidence which has been inspired in other countries is 
 shown in the trust of that magnificent endowment for the 
 diffusion of knowledge to all mankind, under whose roof we 
 are here assembled. The provisions for the election of the 
 Board of Regents and the choice of a Secretary, upon the 
 singleness of whose integrity and the largeness of whose com- 
 prehension are concentrated the hope and ^confidence of his 
 scientific brethren throughout the world, are a guaranty that 
 the honor of the republic will be held sacred in the discharge 
 of this high charity, and that it will not be diverted into any 
 local channel from the enlarged intentions of its testator. Let 
 us profit by the example of Smithson, and, instructed by the 
 wisdom of this high-minded son of England, learn to confide 
 in our own rulers. Let us be aroused to an earnest and har- 
 monious effort to accomplish the plan proposed by our Presi- 
 dent at Albany, for the building up of an ^institution for sci- 
 ence, supplementary to existing institutions, to guide public 
 action in reference to scientific matters." With the details of 
 the plan and the arguments in its favor you are familiar. 
 You know how useful it would be as a protection from the 
 wasteful expenditure upon abortive attempts to reverse the 
 laws of nature. You know how much it is required to sus- 
 tain the purity and independence of science, even within its 
 
OF THE ASSOCIATION. 17 
 
 own proper domain. You know that in no age or country 
 was there ever a more urgent call for a scientific society, in 
 which scientific influence should predominate, where it should 
 not be smothered by excess of patronage, and whence it 
 should not be liable to banishment through any spirit or form 
 of ostracism. If American genius is not fettered by the 
 chains of necessity, and helplessly exposed to the assaults of 
 envious mediocrity, but is generously nourished in the bosom 
 of liberty, it will joyfully expand its free wings, and soar with 
 the eagle to the conquest of the skies. 
 
mim (University UDraries 
 Af^K 1 1 1991