2 LECTURE I. 



this department must, in the natural order of arrangement, be anterior to 

 the application of the sciences to practical uses. To exclude all know- 

 ledge 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 observation, can with rea- 



I son be declared wholly inapplicable to the benefit of mankind. 



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

 ning, but also an object of high and permanent importance in the plan of 

 the Institution, to direct the public attention to the cultivation of the 

 elementary doctrines of natural philosophy, as well speculative as prac- 

 tical. Those w r ho 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 purposes they are applicable : they receive a 

 sufficient gratification from the enlargement of their views of the consti- 

 . tution of the universe, and experience, in the immediate pursuit of know- 

 ledge, that pleasure which others wish to obtain more circuitously by 

 its means. And it is one of the principal advantages of a liberal educa- 

 tion, that it creates a susceptibility of an enjoyment so elegant and so 

 Irational. 



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 civilized 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 

 satisfaction, to the improvement of the mind and to the acquisition of 

 knowledge, than to such amusements as are only designed for facilitating 

 the insipid consumption of superfluous time. The hours thus spent will 

 unquestionably become, by means of a little habit, as much more agreeable 

 at the moment, as they must be more capable of affording self-approbation 

 upon reflection. 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 enjoyment 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 subordinate 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 

 objects of the Royal Institution ; and we must, therefore, direct our atten- 

 tion more particularly to the theory of practical mechanics and of manu- 

 factures. 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 



