388 JAMES WATT. 



work, has reduced them to be mere instruments of demon- 

 stration. This would have been the final fate of New- 

 comen's machine, in localities at least not rich in combus- 

 tibles, if Watt's efforts, of which I must now present you 

 with an analysis, had not come in to give it an unhoped- 

 for degree of perfection. This perfection must not be 

 considered as the result of some fortuitous observation, or 

 of a single inspiration of genius ; the inventor achieved it 

 by assiduous labour, by experiments of extreme delicacy 

 and correctness. One would say that Watt had adopted 

 as his guide that celebrated maxim of Bacon's "To 

 write, speak, meditate, or act, when we are not sufficiently 

 provided with facts to stake out our thoughts, is like navi- 

 gating without a pilot along a coast strewed with dangers, 

 or rushing out on the immense ocean without compass or 

 rudder." 



In the collection belonging to the University of Glas- 

 gow, there was a little model of a steam-engine by New- 

 comen that had never worked well. The Professor of 

 Physics, Anderson, desired Watt to repair it. In the 

 hands of this powerful workman the defects of its con- 

 struction disappeared ; from that time the apparatus was 

 made to work annually under the inspection of the aston- 

 ished students. A man of common mind would have 

 rested satisfied with this success. Watt, on the contrary, 

 as usual with him, saw cause in it for deep study. His 

 researches were successively directed to all the points 

 that appeared likely to clear up the theory of the ma- 

 chine. He ascertained the proportion in which water 

 dilates in passing from a state of fluidity into that of 

 vapour ; the quantity of water that a certain weight of 

 coal can convert into vapour ; the quantity and weight 

 of steam expended at each oscillation by one of Neweo- 



