Dr Whevvell's Inaugural Lecture. 21 



ollet and Lavoisier. So rapidly in this case has the tree of 

 Art blossomed from the root of Science ; upon so gigantic a 

 scale have the truths of Science been embodied in the domain 

 of Art. 



Again, there is another remark which we may make in 

 comparing the First Class, Minerals, with the Third Class, 

 or rather with the Fourth, Vegetable and Animal Substances 

 used in manufactures, or as implements or ornaments. And I 

 wish to speak especially of vegetable substances. In the 

 class of Minerals, all the great members of the class are still 

 what they were in ancient times. No doubt a number of 

 new metals and mineral substances have been discovered ; 

 and these have their use ; and of these the Exhibition pre- 

 sented fine examples. But still, their use is upon a small 

 scale. Gold and iron, at the present day, as in ancient times, 

 are the rulers of the world; and the great events in the 

 world of mineral art are not the discovery of new substances, 

 but of new and rich localities of old ones, — the opening of 

 the treasures of the earth in Mexico and Peru in the six- 

 teenth century, in California and Australia in our own day. 

 But in the vegetable world the case is different ; there, we 

 have not only a constant accumulation and reproduction, but 

 also a constantly growing variety of objects, fitted to the 

 needs and uses of man. Tea, coffee, tobacco, sugar, cotton, 

 have made man's life, and the arts which sustain it, very 

 different from what they were in ancient times. And no 

 one, I think, can have looked at the vegetable treasures of 

 the Crystal Palace without seeing that the various wealth of 

 the vegetable world is far from yet exhausted. The Liver- 

 pool Local Committee have enabled us to take a starting- 

 point for such a survey, by sending to the Exhibition a 

 noble collection of specimens of every kind of import of 

 that great emporium ; among which, as might be expected, 

 the varieties of vegetable produce are the most numerous. But 

 that objects should be reckoned among imports, implies that 

 already they are extensively used. If we look at the multiplied 

 collections of objects of the same kind, some from various 

 countries, not as wares to a known market, but as specimens 

 and suggestions of unexplored wealth, we can have no doubt 



