132 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS (Feb. 27; 
consequence of the subjects chosen for illustration of my argument 
than by any doctrinal exhortations, because these are not needed 
to strengthen your general convictions. 
Our nation has acquired a proud position among the industrial 
states of the world, partly by the discoveries of her philosophers, 
partly by the practical powers and common sense of her population, 
but chiefly by the abundance and richness of her natural resources. 
Our fuel is abundant and cheap, and our iron and the lime necessary 
for its production are associated with it, so that all three may be 
extracted together under the most favourable circumstances. These 
local advantages gave to our country enormous powers of production, 
and, under the favouring influences of an accidental combination, it 
supplied its produce to the rest of the world. Circumstances 
remaining the same, our industrial position was secured, and we have 
been thus lulled into a fatal apathy; for conditions were in fact 
varying with great rapidity, and the world at large was passing 
through a state of remarkable transition. 
Setting aside the questions of capital and labour, which are not 
adapted for discussion in this place, the progress of manufactures is 
made up of two factors, possessing very different values. One of 
these represents the raw produce,— the other, the intellect or science 
employed to adapt it to human wants. As civilization advances, the 
value of the raw material as an element of manufactures diminishes, 
while that of the intellectual element is much enhanced. Improve- 
ments in locomotion by sea and land spread over the world the raw 
material formerly confined to one locality ; and atime arrived when 
a competition of industry became a competition, not of local 
advantages, but of intellect. 
It was obvious that when improved Jocomotion gave to all 
countries raw material at slight differences of cost, that any superiority 
in the intellectual element would more than balance the difference. 
The Continental States, acting on a perception of this truth, saw 
that they could only compete with English industry by instructing 
their populations in the principles of science. Hence have arisen, 
in their capitals, in their towns, and even in their villages, institu- 
tions for affording a systematic training in science ; and industry has 
been raised from the rank of an empirical art to that of a learned 
profession. The result is seen in the fact that we now meet most 
European nations as competitors in all the markets of the world. 
The result is palpably forced upon us by our actual displacement 
from markets in which we had a practical monopoly. The result 
was obvious in the Exhibition, where we saw many nations, formerly 
unknown as producers, frequently approaching, and often excelling 
us in manufactures, our own by hereditary and traditional right. 
The teaching of the Exhibition was to impress me with the 
strongest conviction that England, by relying too much on her local 
advantages, was rapidly losing her former proud position among 
manufacturing nations; and that unless she speedily adopted mea- 
sures to cultivate the intellectual element of production, by instruct- 
ing her population in the scientific principles of the arts which they 
