4 Dr Whewell's Inaugural Lecture, 



how man can act by these, operating through the medium of 

 matter, and thus produce beauty, and utility, and power. 

 This kind of criticism appears to be the natural and proper 

 sequel to such a great burst of production and exhibition as 

 we have had to witness ; — to discover what the laws of ope- 

 rative power are, after having had so great a manifesta- 

 tion of what they do. 



To discover the laws of operative power in literary works, 

 though it claims no small respect under the name of Criti- 

 cism, is not commonly considered the work of a science. 

 But to discover the laws of operative power in material pro- 

 ductions, whether formed by man, or brought into being by 

 Nature herself, is the work of a science, and is indeed what 

 we more especially term Science : and thus, in the case with 

 which we have to do, we have, instead of the Criticism which 

 naturally comes after the general circulation of Poetry, the 

 Science which naturally comes after a great exhibition of 

 Art : two cases of succession connected by a very close and 

 profound analogy. That this view of the natural and general 

 succession of science to art, as of criticism to poetry, is not 

 merely fanciful and analogical, we may easily convince our- 

 selves by looking for an instant at the progress of art and of 

 science in past times. For we see that, in general, art has 

 preceded science. Men have executed great, and curious, 

 and beautiful works before they had a scientific insight into 

 the principles on which the success of their labours was 

 founded. There were good artificers in brass and iron before 

 the principles of the chemistry of metals were known ; there 

 was wine. among men before there was a philosophy of vinous 

 fermentation ; there were mighty masses raised into the air, 

 Cyclopean walls and cromlechs, obelisks and pyramids — pro- 

 bably gigantic Doric pillars and entablatures, — before there 

 was a theory of the mechanical powers. The earlier genera- 

 tions did ; the later explained that it had been possible to do. 

 Art was the mother of Science : the vigorous and comely 

 mother of a daughter of far loftier and serener beauty. And 

 as it had been in the period of scientific activity in the ancient 

 world, so was it again in the modern period in which Science 

 began her later growth. The middle ages produced or im- 



