18. That by such combinations of communities of men, even with their present powers, results may be obtained, which at present appear impossible, or inconceivable, we may find good reason to believe; looking at what has already been done, or planned as attainable by such means, in the promotion of knowledge, and the extension of man's intellectual empire. The greatest discovery ever made, the discovery, by Newton, of the laws which regulate the motions of the cosmical system, has been earned to its present state of completeness, only by the united efforts of all the most intellectual nations upon earth; in addition to vast labors of individuals, and of smaller societies, voluntarily associated for the purpose. Astronomical observatories have been established in every land; scientific voyages, and expeditions for the purpose of observation, wherever they could throw light upon the theory, have been sent forth; costly instruments have been constructed, achievements of discovery have been rewarded; and all nations have shown a ready sympathy with every attempt to forward this part of knowledge. Yet the largest and wisest plans for the extension of human knowledge in other provinces of science by the like means, have remained hitherto almost entirely unexecuted, and have been treated as mere dreams. The exhortations of Francis Bacon to men, to seek, by such means, an elevation of their intellectual condition, have been assented to in words; but his plans of a methodical and organized combination of society for this purpose, it has never been even attempted to realize. If the nations of the earth were to employ, for the promotion of human knowledge, a small fraction only of the means, the wealth, the ingenuity, the energy, the combination, which they have employed in every age, for the destruction of human life and of human means of enjoyment; we might soon find that what we hitherto knew, is little compared with what man has the power of knowing.