INTRODUCTION. S 



A considerable portion of my audience, to whose information it will be 

 my particular ambition to accommodate my lectures, consists of that sex, 

 which, by the custom of civilised society, is in some measure exempted from 

 the more laborious duties that occupy the time and attention of the other 

 sex. The many leisure hours, which are at the command of females in the 

 superior orders of society, may surely be appropriated, with greater satis- 

 faction, to the improvement of the mind, and to the acquisition of know* 

 ledge, than to such amusements as are only designed for facilitating the in- 

 sipid consumption of superfluous time. The hours thus spent will unquestion- 

 ably become, by means of a little habit, as much more agreeable at the mo- 

 ment, as they must be more capable of affording self approbation upon re- 

 flection. And besides, like the seasoning which reconciled the Spartans to 

 their uninviting diet, they will even heighten the relish for those pursuits 

 which they interrupt: for mental exercise is as necessary to mental enjoy- 

 ment, as corporal labour to corporal health and vigour. In this point of 

 view, the Royal Institution may in some degree supply the place of a sub- 

 ordinate university, to those whose sex or situation in life has denied them 

 the advantage of an academical education in the national seminaries of 

 learning. 



But notwithstanding the necessity of introducing very copiously specu- 

 lations of a more general nature, we must not lose sight of the original ob- 

 jects of the Royal Institution; and Ave must therefore direct our attention 

 more particularly to the theory of practical mechanics, and of manufactures. 

 In these departments we shall find some deficiencies which may without much 

 difficulty be supplied from scientific principles; and by an ample collection 

 and display of models, illustrative of machines, and of inventions of all kinds, 

 we may proceed in the most direct manner to contribute to the dissemination 

 of that kind of knowledge which is most particularly our object. So that we 

 must be more practical than academies of sciences, and more theoretical than 

 societies for the improvement of arts; while we endeavour at the same time 

 to give stability to our proceedings, by an annual recurrence to the element- 

 ary knowledge which is subservient to the purposes of both; and, as far as 

 we are able, to apply to practice the newest lights, which may from time to 

 time be thrown on particular branches of mechanical science. It is thus that, 

 we may most effectually perform, what the idolized sophists of antiquity but 



