1 72 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



The chief guest of the evening was the late Lord 

 Salisbury, who delivered a masterly speech on the 

 intellectual pleasure to be derived from the pursuit of 

 science for its own sake. No less eloquent was the 

 recognition by the ever-lamented chemist of Heidel- 

 berg, Victor Meyer, of the part played by the society 

 in the development of the science. I responded to 

 the toast of " Science and Industry/' proposed by Sir 

 Richard Webster (now Lord Alverstone). 



To reply to this sentiment might entail a discourse on the 

 progress of civilisation during the last fifty years. For has 

 not science during that time remodelled entirely every con- 

 dition of life, while man himself remains much as he was ? 

 We read that Horace, when advised by his physician to take 

 the waters of Clusium (as any dyspeptic might be advised 

 to-day by his physician to go to Bath), wrote to ask about 

 the water supply of the place, and having, I presume, received 

 satisfactory information, went to the baths, as we do now. 

 How insignificant do political changes appear compared with 

 the changes which science has wrought in the world ! Look 

 where we will, in every department of human knowledge 

 and activity, in all climes, and throughout all classes of 

 society, we see the beneficent action of science. There is 

 not an industry which does not owe its success, nay, even 

 its existence, to the application of scientific principles. But 

 how is this union of science and industry, of theory and 

 practice, to be made more fruitful ? Only by the appreciation 

 by all classes that practice without science and without 

 theory is unpractical, and that industrial progress without 

 science is impossible. England has happily become at 

 length aware of this great fact The word technical in- 

 struction has become world-wide, and we see the necessity 

 of scientific education, in order that we may preserve our 

 national supremacy. But public attention has yet to be 

 awakened to the importance and necessity of fostering 

 and stimulating provision for the higher teaching of science. 

 It is to the master rather than to the man that we must look 

 for those improvements and discoveries by which alone 

 industry can be rendered permanent. It is the pride of 

 such societies as our own to develop this higher scientific 

 training by the encouragement of original investigation. 

 To enlarge the boundaries of our knowledge of Nature is 



