38^ FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



knowledge, as a thing good in itself, and without regard 

 to its practical application, which animates the hearers of 

 these lectures. 



It is also my privilege to lecture to another audience in 

 London, composed in part of the aristocracy of rank, while 

 the audience just referred to is composed wholly of the 

 aristocracy of labor. As regards attention and courtesy to 

 the lecturer, neither of these audiences has anything to 

 learn of the other; neither can claim superiority over the 

 other. It would not, perhaps, be quite correct to take 

 those persons who flock to the School of Mines as average 

 samples of their class; they are probably picked men 

 the aristocracy of labor, as I have just called them. At 

 all events, their conduct demonstrates that the essential 

 qualities of what we in England understand by a gentleman 

 are confined to no class; and they have often raised in my 

 mind the wish that the gentlemen of all classes, artisans as 

 well as lords, could, by some process of selection, be sifted 

 from the general mass of the community, and caused to 

 know each other better. 



When pressed some months ago by the Council of the 

 British Association to give an evening lecture to the work- 

 ingmen of Dundee, rny experience of the vvorkingmen of 

 London naturally rose to my mind; and, though heavily 

 weighted with other duties, I could not bring myself to 

 decline the request of the Council. Hitherto, the evening 

 discourses of the Association have been delivered before 

 its members and associates alone. But after the meeting 

 at Nottingham, last year, where the workingmen, at 

 their own request, were addressed by our late president, 

 Mr. Grove, and by my excellent friend, Professor Huxley, 

 the idea arose of incorporating with all subsequent meetings 

 of the Association an address to the workingmen of the 

 town in which the meeting is held. A resolution to that 

 effect was sent to the Committee of Recommendations; 

 the Committee supported the resolution; the Council of 

 the Association ratified the decision of the Committee; 

 and here I am to carry out to the best of my ability their 

 united wishes. 



Whether it be a consequence of long-continued develop- 

 ment, or an endowment conferred once for all on man at 

 his creation, we find him here gifted with a mind curious 



