2 tECTURE I. 



opening new fields for speculation. Other associations have been more par- 

 ticularly intended for the encouragement of the arts, of manufactures, and 

 of commerce. The primary and peculiar object of the Royal Institution of 

 Great Britain is professedly of an humbler, but not of a less interesting na- 

 ture. It is, to apply to domestic convenience the improvements which have 

 been made in science, and to introduce into general practice such mechanical 

 inventions as are of decided utility. But while it is chiefly engaged in this 

 pursuit, it extends its views, in some measure, to the promotion of the same 

 ends which belong to the particular provinces of other literary societies; and 

 it is the more impossible that such objects should be wholly excluded, as it 

 is upon the advancement of these that the specific objects of the Institution 

 must ultimately depend. Hence the dissemination of the knowledge of 

 natural philosophy and chemistry becomes a very essential part of the design 

 of the Royal Institution: and this department must, in the natural order 

 of arrangement, be anterior to the application of the sciences to practical 

 uses. To exclude all knowledge but that which has already been applied to 

 immediate utility, would be to reduce our faculties to a state of servitude, 

 and to frustrate the very purposes which we are labouring to accomplish. 

 No discovery, however remote in its nature from the subjects of daily ob- 

 servation, can with reason be declared wholly inapplicable to the benefit 

 of mankind. 



It has therefore always appeared to me, to be not only the best beginning, 

 but also an object of high and permanent importance in the plan of the In- 

 stitution, to direct the public attention to the cultivation of the elementary 

 doctrines of natural philosophy, as well speculative as practical. Those who 

 possess the genuine spirit of scientific investigation, and who have tasted the 

 pure satisfaction arising from an advancement in intellectual acquirements, 

 are contented to proceed in their researches, without inquiring at every step^ 

 what they gain by their newly discovered lights, and to what practical pur- 

 poses they are applicable: they receive a sufficient gratification from the en- 

 largement of their views of the constitution of the universe, and experience, 

 in the immediate pursuit of knowledge, that pleasure which others wish to 

 obtain more circuitously. by its means. And it is one of the principal advan- 

 tages of a liberal education, that it creates a susceptibility of an enjoyment 

 so elegant and so rational. 



