Admitting that there are several cases in which offices are considerably underpaid, no answer has yet been given to the great argument arising from supply and demand. It is an admitted fact, that for every office under government, and for every grade in the army and navy, the number of fitting candidates on each vacancy is very large, and the political and family interest set at work to acquire it, is very great. This can arise only from those offices being overpaid, not by the actual money payment, but by combining that form of remuneration with position in society, and other advantages to which they lead. If this be the case, it is quite unnecessary to add any new inducement—such as the decoration of the Bath—to those so circumstanced, unless it be indeed for very extraordinary services. Another indication of over-payment is to be found in the fact, that in several professions such offices are matter of sale and purchase. They are so avowedly both in the Church and in the Army. The Whigs, afraid of intellect when combined with independence, have, during their temporary and tolerated possession of office, confined the new honours the country has to bestow, to those persons only who can be influenced by the hope of promotion,—namely, to those already occupying office. If a distinction is to be made amongst scientific men, let us inquire whether those who fill the few public situations reserved for science and paid by the country, ought to be eligible rather than those whose equally successful contributions to science have been given without any such advantage. To enable any individual in the present day to enlarge the bounds of science by original discovery, he must be content to sacrifice his whole time and energies to that object. It is true that a considerable or even a great knowledge of certain sciences, and possibly the power of making some additions to them, may co-exist in a few instances with the qualifications necessary for other employments. Such attainments are highly creditable to those officials who so employ their leisure without neglecting their official duties. But the more successful their scientific discoveries, the greater must be the regret that the whole power of such intelligence cannot be directed to one subject. The various sciences have, it is true, such relations to each other, that few can be cultivated to any great advantage without some acquaintance with those sciences intimately connected with the favourite pursuit. But if it is admitted that all inquiries into Nature and her laws, are directly beneficial to the arts and commerce of the country, it is, in a national point of view, eminently impolitic not to secure for science that division of labour which so remarkably contributes to the progress of all other subjects.