terrestrial magnetism, and local meteorology." His views therefore appear to be, that State aid to research should be limited to utilitarian objects; and that it is with propriety given to his own department, which is connected with the State. It has however been abundantly proved that nearly all the great scientific utilities of every-day life, had their origin in the pursuit, not of utilities, but of pure truth, and that immediate usefulness is neither the most successful nor the highest motive in scientific research, nor should research be limited by so narrow a condition. The investigations also made by the aid of Government Grants possess the usual degree of definiteness and of utility of such labours, and it cannot be reasonably expected that the world would be unanimous respecting any measure, especially respecting a subject so little understood by the public as the Endowment of Research. If investigators were to limit their researches to utilities, or what appeared to be such, scarcely any {177} essentially new experiments or new discoveries of importance would be made. No attempts would be made to discover essentially novel facts, nor would many trials be made to test fundamental abstract questions which affect the very basis of scientific knowledge. The principles of electro-magnetism, of magneto-electric action, and of the magnetic rotation of polarized light, were each discovered by means of perfectly novel experiments, in which immediate utility was not the motive. It is worthy of notice that of the very small proportion of scientific investigators who disapprove of State aid to Research, nearly every one already possesses sufficient pecuniary means to carry on investigations, and therefore cannot adequately appreciate the position and necessities of investigators having only small incomes. In some cases also the objections to aid investigators come from scientific men who have attempted to make discoveries but have not succeeded.