For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.

It can happen to but few philosophers, and but at distant intervals, to snatch a science, like Dalton, from the chaos of indefinite combination, and binding it in the chains of number, to exalt it to rank amongst the exact. Triumphs like these are necessarily 'few and far between.'

There is, however, another purpose to which academies contribute. When they consist of a limited number of persons, eminent for their knowledge, it becomes an object of ambition to be admitted on their list.

That a country, [England], eminently distinguished for its mechanical and manufacturing ingenuity, should be indifferent to the progress of inquiries which form the highest departments of that knowledge on whose more elementary truths its wealth and rank depend, is a fact which is well deserving the attention of those who shall inquire into the causes that influence the progress of nations.

Another mode of accumulating power arises from lifting a weight and then allowing it to fall.

I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.

The errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound reasoning respecting true data.