362 THE ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



give you pleasure for years to come, whereas the wasteful enjoy- 

 ment of an hour is lost the moment the excitement is over. 



There is great room for improvement in this respect, in 

 directing our energies to some purpose. Where you find suc- 

 cessful men you may almost invariably trace their success under 

 otherwise equal circumstances, to the fact that they have more 

 earnest bias than others who, with equal ability, equal desire 

 to get on, fritter their time and energy away. This waste of 

 personal energy is one which has to be watched, and I hope that 

 through institutions of this kind we shall instil by degrees a taste 

 for profitable mental exercises and profitable bodily exercises, 

 instead of the wasteful methods in which these energies have 

 been expended hitherto. 



The next form of waste is that of mechanical energy, and there 

 we come more directly toward the application of science itself. 

 One workman will spend a great deal more labour in accomplish- 

 ing a given amount of set work than another. If he has method 

 he will not move his limbs more than is necessary, he will not lift 

 a weight oftener than is necessary for the accomplishment of his 

 purpose, whereas a novice will dance about without reflection, and 

 incur a great deal of labour to produce little result. 



But there is more serious waste of mechanical energy. Take 

 for instance the great motive power of the day the steam-engine. 

 The steam-engine of twenty years ago expended about 10 Ibs. of 

 coal for every horse-power of effect yielded from it. By applying 

 scientific methods and mechanical skill in this direction we have 

 been able to greatly reduce the amount of fuel consumed per 

 horse-power namely from 10 Ibs. to 2 Ibs. The engine is exactly 

 the same in its essential parts, there are boiler, steam cylinder, and 

 if it is a low-pressure engine, the condenser. Yet by more judicious 

 arrangement of these parts, without any other expenditure than 

 that of thought and a little more mechanical skill, we accomplish 

 the marvellous result of obtaining our effects with an expenditure 

 of one-fifth of what was spent before. 



In like manner in our smelting works, to produce a ton of 

 iron used to take seven or eight tons of coal, and to produce a 

 ton of steel used to take about fourteen tons of coal, whereas, by 

 dint of invention, of method in applying these inventions, and of 

 mechanical skill we have reduced this expenditure of fuel fully in the 



