SCIENCE IN RELATION TO THE ARTS. 51 



priests of science, command our utmost admiration ; but it is not to 

 them that we can look for our current progress in practical science, 

 much less can we look for it to the " rule-of-thumb " practitioner, who 

 is guided by what comes nearer to instinct than to reason. It is to the 

 man of science, who also gives attention to practical questions, and to 

 the practitioner, who devotes part of his time to the prosecution of 

 strictly scientific investigations, that we owe the rapid progress of the 

 present day, both merging more and more into one class, that of pio- 

 neers in the domain of Nature. It is such men that Archimedes must 

 have desired when he refused to teach his disciples the art of construct- 

 ino- his powerful ballistic engines, exhorting them to give their atten- 

 tion to the principles involved in their construction, and that Telford, 

 the founder of the Institution of Civil Engineers, must have had in his 

 mind's eye when he defined civil engineering as " the art of directing 

 the great sources of power in nature." 



These considerations may serve to show that although we see the 

 men of both abstract and applied science group themselves in minor 

 bodies for the better prosecution of special objects, the points of con- 

 tact between the different branches of knowledge are ever multiplying, 

 all tending to form part of a mighty tree the tree of modern science 

 under whose ample shadow its cultivators will find it both profitable 

 and pleasant to meet, at least once a year ; and, considering that thi;i 

 tree is not the growth of one country only, but spreads both its roots 

 and branches far and wide, it appears desirable that at these yearly 

 gatherings other nations should be more fully represented than has 

 hitherto been the case. The subjects discussed at our meetings are, 

 without exception, of general interest ; but many of them bear an inter- 

 national character, such as the systematic collection of magnetic, astro- 

 nomical, meteorological, and geodetical observations, the formation of 

 a universal code for signaling at sea, and for distinguishing light- 

 houses, and especially the settlement of scientific nomenclatures and 

 units of measurement, regarding all of which an international accord 

 is a matter of the utmost practical importance. 



As regards the measures of length and weight it is to be regretted 

 that this country still stands aloof from the movement initiated in 

 France toward the close of the last century ; but, considering that in 

 scientific work metrical measure is now almost universally adopted, 

 and that its use has been already legalized in this country, I venture 

 to hope that its universal adoption for commercial purposes will soon 

 follow as a matter of course. The practical advantages of such a 

 measure to the trade of this country would, I am convinced, be very 

 great, for English goods, such as machinery or metal rolled to current 

 sections, are now almost excluded from the Continental market, owing 

 to the unit measure employed in their production. The principal im- 

 pediment to the adoption of the metre consists in the strange anomaly 

 that although it is legal to use that measure in commerce, and although 



