THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



249 



But it is hardly the duty of the historian of thought to 

 record that which belongs more to the impediments of 

 mental progress than to its promotion, were it not that 

 in and through these peculiar circumstances the genius 

 of the nation has developed its main features, its strong 

 character. These are manifest as much in the depart- 

 ment of science as they are in general literature and in 

 the institutions of practical life. British science through 

 all the centuries, since the time of Eoger Bacon, and 

 in spite of the efforts of his illustrious namesake, has 



23. 



Character- 

 istics of 

 English 

 thought. 



the welfare of the poor. William 

 Wilberforce was one of the original 

 promoters ; Thomas Bernard, the 

 founder of many other charitable 

 institutions, one of its most active 

 members. To a committee of this 

 Society Count Rumford submitted, 

 in 1799, his proposals for forming 

 the Royal Institution, and it was 

 accordingly founded in February of 

 that year on private subscriptions 

 of fifty guineas each. It was de- 

 scribed as a "public Institution 

 for diffusing the knowledge and 

 facilitating the general introduc- 

 tion of useful mechanical inven- 

 tions and improvements, and for 

 teaching by courses of philosophical 

 lectures and experiments the appli- 

 cation of science to the common 

 purposes of life. " In the course of 

 a very few years the original char- 

 acter of the Institution entirely 

 changed, the aim of influencing 

 directly the condition of the poor 

 was lost sight of, and little re- 

 mained besides the result of " bring- 

 ing science into some degree of 

 fashion " and " affording a new em- 

 ployment and amusement to the 

 higher classes of life." The inter- 

 est of the Institution for the his- 

 tory of thought is the fact that in 

 its laboratory Davy and Faraday 



conducted their researches, and that 

 they, as well as Young, Coleridge, 

 and Sydney Smith, there delivered 

 their lectures. And the history of 

 the Royal Institution is also typical 

 of the history of other establish- 

 ments for higher culture in this 

 country : it has been in its main 

 features repeated on a larger or 

 smaller scale in many provincial 

 societies, and notably in the col- 

 leges of Manchester, Birmingham, 

 Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds, Bris- 

 tol, Nottingham, &c. Started by 

 persons with large but nevertheless 

 insufficient means, or by subscrip- 

 tions and endowments of moderate 

 extent, obliged to gain popularity 

 and fashionable support in order to 

 meet their growing expenses, these 

 institutions have depended mostly 

 on individual energy for their first 

 successes, and have all had to pass 

 through periods of great difficulty, 

 till in course of years they have 

 acquired a special character of use- 

 fulness and defined their peculiar 

 sphere of action. The absence of 

 a definite programme and a great 

 waste of energy and funds over 

 special departures are not un- 

 common features of these develop- 

 ments. 



