xi POLITICAL LIFE 263 



occasions on scientific and other subjects. At the 

 Manchester Athenaeum, on October 29th, I gave a 

 brief account of the progress made during the past 

 fifty years in those branches of science with which the 

 Athenaeum had been intimately associated, and indi- 

 cated the difference in the circumstances in which men 

 lived when Mr. James Heywood, its first President, 

 was in his prime. It had been said that the true test 

 of the civilisation of a nation was its progress in 

 science. Although science was cosmopolitan, Man- 

 chester might well be proud of her position in respect 

 of scientific attainments. If we looked back fifty 

 years we found that the first railway in the world for 

 passenger traffic had only for a few years been estab- 

 lished between Liverpool and Manchester, the first 

 steamer had not yet passed between the shores of the 

 Old and the New World, the electric telegraph was 

 unknown. That which had revolutionised Manchester 

 trade was not accomplished till 1851, when the first 

 submarine cable was laid between Dover and Calais. 

 The connection of the American continent with our 

 own country was not effected till 1866. The names 

 of John Dalton and James Prescott Joule stood 

 pre-eminent among the men of science of this cen- 

 tury. In applied science we had no reason to be 

 ashamed of the work done in Manchester. We had 

 had among us Eaton Hodgkinson, Richard Roberts, 

 James Nasmyth, William Fairbairn, Joseph Whit- 

 worth, Charles Beyer, Peacock, John Platt, Daniel 

 Adamson, and Sharp Stewart and Co. But physical 

 science was only one branch of the great study of 

 Nature. It had been well said that the " noblest 

 study of mankind is man." The laws regulating 

 society, trade, and the intercourse of nations were 

 not a less important study than the laws of the physical 



