Page:Reflections on the decline of science in England - Babbage - 1830.pdf/47

 national encouragement of science by its value in pounds, shillings, and pence, I will here state a fact, which, although pretty generally known, still, I think, deserves attention. A short time since it was discovered by government that the terms on which annuities had been granted by them were erroneous, and new tables were introduced by act of Parliament. It was stated at the time that the erroneous tables had caused a loss to the country of between two and three millions sterling. The fact of the sale of those annuities being a losing concern was long known to many; and the government appear to have been the last to be informed on the subject. Half the interest of half that loss, judiciously applied to the encouragement of mathematical science, would, in a few years, have rendered utterly impossible such expensive errors.

To those who bow to the authority of great names, one remark may have its weight. The Mecanique Cœleste, and the Théorie Analytique des Probabilités, were both dedicated, by