380 THE KOYAL INSTITUTION. [CHAP. VI. 



and make them metals, and their base will bestow on 

 them their own peculiar properties. 



' I should wish particularly on this point to be 

 understood rightly. I am not an advocate for 

 alchemy and its attendant frauds ; that will appear 

 from the tenor of my discourse ; but I conceive it to be 

 a noble and glorious object to follow up the paths 

 trod by those chemists who wish for the improvement 

 of science to ascertain the compound nature of 

 metals. It is a subject well worthy of pursuit, and 

 whenever the discovery is made it will confer 

 immortal honour on the discoverer, the age, and the 

 country that it is made in.' 



Faraday then says, ' Having thus given the general 

 character of the metals, Sir H. Davy proceeded to make 

 a few observations on the connection of science with the 

 other parts of polished and social life. Here it would 

 be improper for me to follow him. I should merely 

 injure and destroy the beautiful, the sublime observa- 

 tions that fell from his lips. He spoke in the most 

 energetic and luminous manner of the advancement of 

 the arts and sciences, of the connection that had 

 always existed between them and other parts of a 

 nation's economy. He noticed the peculiar con- 

 geries of great men in all departments of life that 

 generally appeared together, noticed Anaximander, 

 Anaximenes, Socrates, Newton, Bacon, Elizabeth, 

 &c., but, by an unaccountable omission, forgot 

 himself, though I will venture to say no one else 

 present did. 



4 During the whole of these observations his delivery 



