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nical operations, there are numberless occupations, which I could enumerate, that would promote the industry, the comforts, and the health of individuals, as well as contribute to their subsistence and prosperity. The true principles of Public Economy, in other words, the Art of rendering a Nation populous and happy, begins to be studied under very advantageous circumstances in every part of Europe. As long as experience is preserved for its basis, and habits, sanctified by time, are rejected, when proved to be absurd in modern practice; as long as prejudices are permitted to remain prejudices, until more sure, solid, and undoubted experiments shall have proclaimed the necessity of their ceasing to exist, so long there will be substantial grounds for believing, that we are making a slow but certain progress in improvement. But, if the rash spirit of innovation should take possession of the minds of those who govern mankind; if they will insist on bringing all things within a punctilious system of rules, they must not be surprized, if their fondness for precision should terminate in a similar anarchy to that which has oppressed and ruined France.

LETTER

LETTER XXIX.

The National Institute.

ALL the observations which I made in a former letter respecting the decay of letters and philosophy, during the progress of the Revolution, and the necessity the French have been under, of establishing some measures to obviate the evils attending it, will apply with equal force to the National Institute. But the original formation of this institution is liable to praise, as the least examination of its organic laws, by which it was established, will prove. The old academies had been completely destroyed, and their members banished, murdered, or dispersed; so that much was to be done towards the restoration of Science and Literature. Any institution which had this object in view, would have been acceptable to the French nation; the plan, therefore, of the present, which seems well calculated to collect together the genius, talents, and industry of the French, merits attention. I shall, therefore, present you with a detailed account of their proceedings, and accompany them with such reflections as they may require.

The National Institute of Sciences and Arts, belongs to the whole Republic, and is fixed at Paris, for the purpose, first, of bringing the sci

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ences and arts to perfection, by uninterrupted researches, by the publication of discoveries, by a correspondence with learned foreign societies; secondly, of pursuing, conformably to established laws, the scientific and literary labours, which shall have for their object, the general utility and glory of the Republic. It is composed of one hundred and forty-four members, resident in Paris, and of an equal number of associates, taken from different parts of the Republic, together with twenty-four learned foreigners, forming eight foreign associates to each class.

Here I cannot avoid introducing a remark, which I have had occasion repeatedly to make in this country, namely, that every preference is manifestly given to the capital, even at the expence of the departments. An hundred and forty-four members are always to be found in Paris, but the poor departments, containing a population of thirty to one, compared with the metropolis, are never expected to produce more able men collectively, than the latter. This is absurd in the extreme; for every one knows, that under the old monarchy, there were men of the most distinguished acquirements, scattered over the provinces, who were often equal, and in many instances, far superior to the members of the Parisian Academies. Montesquieu was a member of the Academy of Bordeaux, long before he was admitted into the Academie Français. Of the former, he was chosen member in 1716, and it

was

was not until the year 1728, and after considerable opposition from Cardinal Fleury and the Court, that he was admitted into the latter. Indeed, an admission into that famous society was not always an evidence of supereminent merit; very often had genius to contest against cabal, intrigue, and court favour; so that, with the exception of the political advantages, which an admission into the French Academy conferred on the successful candidate, the literati of Europe accustomed themselves to look for great and estimable men in the other academies of France, such as Aix, Marseille, Lyons, Bordeaux, &c. Besides, the separate jurisdictions into which France was then divided, raised up of necessity men of the first-rate celebrity. Who has not read with profit and delight, the eloquent reasonings in the different Parliaments of Old France? Who has not warmed with the Orators of Britanny, and the advocates of the unfortunate family of Calas?

The pre-eminence thus accorded to the Parisian savans, who are in general a gang of the vilest ruffians in the world, is a marked insult to the rest of the Republic; and confirms, what I have ever asserted, that to rule France, it is only necessary to be master at Paris. For the sake of this infernal city, France and foreign countries have been laid under contributions, and pillaged of whatever transportable monuments of arts and genius they possessed; and had it been practicable, the triumphal arch at Orange, the bridge of Gard, D 4

and

and the amphitheatre of Nismes, would have been removed here, to gratify the fancy of the Parisian rabble of philosophers and legislators. This law, by which the learned men of a single city are placed on a level with those who people the whole surface of a great empire, was made by the very men who afterwards became self-elected members of this miscalled National Institute, and therefore,. we cannot be surprized, that it was enacted with a view to the self-interest and emolument of the Law-makers. For, believe me, it is no trivial matter to be one of the hundred and fortyfour resident at Paris. It leads to fame and fortune; to places and appointments, civil and military; and it is the highest step, as I shall hereafter shew, on the ladder of philosophical ambition.

To return to the laws of the Institute. It is divided into three classes, and each class into several sections, including six Parisian, and six departmental members, conformably to the following table, viz.

FIRST CLASS. Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

1. Mathematics-2. Mechanical Arts-3. Astronomy-4. Experimental Physics-5. Chemistry6. Natural History and Mineralogy-7. Botany and Vegetable Physics (an unnecessary and foolish distinction between one and the same thing)-8. Anatomy and Zoology-9. Medicine and Surgery -10. Rural Economy, and the Veterinary Art.

SECOND CLASS. Moral and Political Sciences.

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