TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 667 
Section G.—ENGINEERING. 
PrEsIDENT OF THE SEcTION—Hon. C. A. Parsons, M.A., FBS. 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18. 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
On this occasion I propose to devote my remarks to the subject of invention. 
Tt is a subject of considerable importance, not only to engineers but also to 
men of science and the public generally. 
I also propose to treat invention in its wider sense, and to include under the 
word discoveries in physics, mechanics, chemistry, and geology. 
Invention throughout the Middle Ages was held in little esteem. In most 
dictionaries it receives scant reference except as applied to poetry, painting, and 
sculpture. 
Shakespeare and Dryden describe invention as a kind of muse or inspiration in 
relation to the arts, and when taken in its general sense to be associated with 
deceit, as ‘Return with an invention, and clap upon you two or three plausible 
lies. 
As to the opposition and hostility to scientific research, discovery, and mechan- 
ical invention in the past, and until comparatively recent times, there can be no 
eee? in some cases the opposition actually amounting to persecution and 
cruelty. 
The change in public opinion has been gradual. The great inventions of the 
last century in science and the arts have resulted in a large increase of knowledge 
and the powers of man to harness the forces of Nature. These great inventions 
have proved without question that the inventors in the past have, in the widest 
sense, been among the greatest benefactors of the human race. Yet the lot of the 
inventor until recent years has been exceptionally trying, and even in our time 
I scarcely think that anyone would venture to describe it as altogether a happy 
one. The hostility and opposition which the inventor suffered in the Middle Ages 
have certainly been removed, but he still labours under serious disability in many 
respects under law as compared with other sections of the community. The 
change of public feeling in favour of discovery and invention has progressed with 
rapidity during the last century. Not only have private individuals devoted more 
time and money to the work, but societies, institutions, colleges, municipalities, 
and Governments have founded many research laboratories, and in some instances 
have provided large endowments. These measures have increased the number of 
persons trained to scientific methods, and also provided greatly improved facilities 
for research ; but perhaps one of the most important results to engineers has been 
the direct and indirect influence of the more general application of scientific 
methods to engineering. 
Sir Frederick Bramwell, in his Presidential Address to this Association in 1888, 
emphasised the interdependence of the scientist and the civil engineer, and de- 
scribed how the work of the latter has been largely based on the discoveries of the 
