236 THE ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



that even if our coal supplies came to an end, as in course of time 

 they would, we should not be altogether left without resources, but 

 should be able to utilise those numerous forces in nature, which 

 we now hardly looked at, but which in time would perhaps be the 

 mainstay of our existence. Of course with such a change there 

 would come a great variety of new arts and new industries, to 

 employ those powers in this and that direction, and there would 

 be ever new fields opening out for the exercise of their intelli- 

 gence, which was after all the greatest gift they had received from, 

 their Creator. 



What he might say was that it constituted the condition of 

 civilised man. No doubt we had a moral elevation given by 

 religion, art, and letters, bub after all we could not exist without 

 the material domination of the world. In the earliest times 

 man lived only a little removed from the natural condition of 

 the animal. He, however, soon gained some efficiency, such as 

 using the bow and arrow, and making animals subservient to him 

 and employing them for draught and other purposes. Then he 

 tilled the ground, grew corn and similar products, and step by 

 step advanced until we had arrived at the present state of society, 

 in which man no longer was made to do the drudgery of work 

 which devolved on him formerly. There had also taken place a 

 great advance of mental activity, and we were, he contended, on 

 the threshold of that period when the great forces of nature would 

 be more fully employed, and when man would rise to the position 

 which he believed we were destined to hold. 



He thanked them for the patience with which they had listened 

 to the few remarks he had made, and before sitting down he 

 begged again to congratulate the institution on the sound position 

 it seemed to be in, and the good progress everything seemed to 

 have made. 



A vote of thanks to Dr. Siemens for his address was carried 

 with acclamation. 



DR. SIEMENS, in acknowledging the compliment paid him, said 

 he thanked them very much for the kind manner in which the 

 vote of thanks had been proposed and seconded, and also for the 

 kind way in which they had adopted it. He was a comparative 

 stranger in this neighbourhood. Rather more than thirty years 



