420 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



allotted days on earth, so as to make none ashamed that they 

 called themselves my friends." The cushion was not uncalled 

 for, as very soon after entering on his appointment, he is 

 compelled to say, "The Chair of Technology is not stuffed 

 with down : a thorn or two stick out of it, and it requires 

 cautious engineering to get into it with comfort to myself and 

 others." 



The inaugural lecture was devoted in great part to the defini- 

 tion of the limits he assigned to his Professorship. Its title, 

 " What is Technology ? " was welcome to the eager public, in 

 doubt as to what it represented. Throwing around the useful 

 arts the charm which intense earnestness, combined with exten- 

 sive knowledge and poetic sensibilities, cannot fail to impart, 

 he speaks of man in infancy as a creature whom every animal, 

 endowed with unerring instinct, can afford to despise. Yet 

 " half of the industrial arts are the result of our being bom 

 without clothes ; the other half, of our being born without tools. 

 With the intellects of angels, and the bodies of earth-worms, 

 we have the power to conquer, and the need to do it." Man he 

 defines " as the only animal that can strike a light, the solitary 

 creature that knows how to kindle a fire. This is a very frag- 

 mentary definition of the ' Paragon of Animals,' but it is enough 

 to make him the conqueror of them all. . . . Once provided 

 with his kindled brand, the savage technologist soon proves 

 what a sceptre of power he holds in his hands. . . . Well did 

 the wise ancients declare that men obtained fire from heaven, 

 but not well that they stole it. It was a gift to them in com- 

 pensation for their having no share in the dowry granted to the 

 lower animals ; and it has proved an ample compensation. . . ." 

 While the inferior animals have an infallible guide in instinct, 

 man has to learn by dearly-bought experience. " The prevent- 

 able human suffering, and the needless loss of human life, which 

 are occasioned by our industrial doings, are in amount altogether 

 appalling. . . . All the suffering and death which are occasioned 

 by our ignorance of physical laws, are death-stains upon OUT 

 science, as well as griefs to humanity. From the moment that 

 we quit the guidance of instinct for that of interpreting, devis- 

 ing, and constructing intellect, we are bound to employ the last 



