214 THE EOYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



'' To those who are engaged in the practical cultivation of various arts condu- 

 cive to the conveuiences of life, these lectures may be of utility by furnishing 

 them with well-established principles, applicable to a variety of cases which 

 may occasionally occur to them, when a little deviation from the ordinary rou- 

 tine of their profession may be necessary. Unfortunately, the hands that exe- 

 cute are too often inadequately supported by the head that directs ; and much 

 labor is lost for want of a little previous application to the fundamental doc- 

 trines of the mechanical sciences. Nor is any exorbitant portion of time or 

 industry necessary for this purpose ; for it happens that almost all practical 

 applications of science depend on principles easily leanred. * * * 



AVe may also be able to render an important service to society, and to confer a 

 still more essential benefit on individuals, by repressing the premature zeal of 

 unskilful inventors. We need only read over the monthly accounts of patents 

 intended for securing the pecuniary advantages of useful discoveries, in order to 

 be convinced what expense of time and fortune is continually lavished on the 

 feeblest attempts to innovate and improve. If we can be successful in convinc- 

 ing such inconsiderate enthusiasts of their real ignorance, or if we can show them 

 that even their own fair}' ground has been preoccupied, we may save them from 

 impending ruin, and may relieve the public from the distraction of having its 

 attention perpetually excited by unworthy objects. The ridicule attendant on 

 the name of a projector has been in general but too well deserved ; for few, 

 very few, who have as})ired at improvement, have ever had the patience to sub- 

 mit their inventions to such experimental tests as common sense would suggest 

 to an impartial observer. We may venture to affirm that out of every hundred 

 of fancied improvements in arts or in machines, ninety at least, if not ninety- 

 nine, are either old or useless ; the object of our researches is, to enable ourselves 

 to distinguish and adopt the hundredth. But while we prune the luxuriant 

 hoots of youthful invention, we must remember to perform our task with len- 

 enc}', and to show that we wish only to give additional vigor to the healthful 

 branches, and not to extirpate the })arent plant. 



" Tlie Repository of the Institution, as soon as it can be properly furnished, 

 will be considered as a supplementary room for apparatus, in which the most 

 interesting models exhil)ited and described in the lectures will be placed for 

 more frequent inspection, and where a few other articles may perhaps deserve 

 admission, which will not require so particular an explanation. To those who 

 have profited bj the lectures, or who are already too far advanced to stand in 

 need of them, our rooms for reading and for literary conversation may be a 

 source of mutual instruction. Oar library in time must contain all those works 

 of importance which are too expensive ibr the private collections of the gener- 

 ality of individuals, which are necessary to complete the knowledge of partic- 

 ular sciences, and to which references will occasionally be given in the lectures 

 on those sciences. Our journals, free from commercial shackles, will present the 

 public from time to time with concise accounts of the most interesting novelties 

 in science and the useful arts ; and they will furnish a perpetual incitement to 

 their editors to appropriate, as much as possible, to their own improvement, 

 ■\\hatever is valuable in the publications of their cotemporaries. When all the 

 advantages which may reasonably be expected from this Institution shall be 

 fully understood and impartially considered, it is to be hoped that few persons of 

 liberal minds will be indift'erent to its success, or unwilling to contribute to it 

 and to participate in it. 



" To that regulation which forbids the introduction of any discussions connected 

 with the learned professions I shall always most willingly submit and most 

 punctually attend. It requires the study of a considerable portion of a man's 

 life to qualify him to be of use to mankind in any of them ; and nothing can be 

 more ptnnicious to individuals or to society than the attempting to proceed prac- 

 tically upon an imperfect conception of a few first principles only. In physic 



