328 THE EOYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. VI. 



that the different parts of the great whole of society 

 should be intimately united together by means of 

 knowledge and the useful arts, that they should act as the 

 children of one great parent with one determinate end, 

 so that no power may be rendered useless, no exertions 

 thrown away. 



* In this view we do not look to distant ages or amuse 

 ourselves with brilliant though delusive dreams con- 

 cerning the infinite improvability of man, the annihi- 

 lation of labour, disease, and even death ; but we 

 reason by analogy from simple facts ; we consider only 

 a state of human progression arising out of its present 

 condition ; we look for a time that we may reasonably 



expect, FOR A BRIGHT DAT OF WHICH WE ALREADY 

 BEHOLD THE DAWN.' 



The following day Sir H. Englefield wrote to Mr. 

 Underwood from Tilney Street, 'Davy, covered with 

 glory, dines with me at five to-day. If you could meet 

 him it would give me great pleasure.' 



At this dinner Sir Henry wrote a request to Davy to 

 print his lecture. 



A friend of Davy's some years afterwards thus 

 mentioned the success of his lectures to Dr. Paris : 



6 The sensation created by his lectures at the Insti- 

 tution and the enthusiastic admiration which they 

 obtained is at this period scarcely to be imagined. 

 Men of the first rank and talent, the literary and the 

 scientific, the practical and the theoretical, blue- 

 stockings and women of fashion, the old and the young, 

 all crowded, eagerly crowded, the lecture room. His 

 youth, his simplicity, his natural eloquence, his 



