454 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
while flickering oil-lamps made the darkness visible without, and a 
detestable tallow candle made the student miserable within doors. 
Those who cannot recollect the universal reign of tallow candles and 
their snuffers cannot appreciate how much the sum of human enjoy- 
ment has been enhanced, and the tranquillity of human temper in- 
creased, by the transmutation — partial, we must admit — of darkness 
into light. There has been, I believe, no more potent agent in 
humanising the denizens of our large cities than the flood of light 
which chemical science has in our day poured into their recesses. 
The ingenious author of the diverting volume on the Miseries of 
Human Life, published, T think, about 1812 or 1814, was quite 
Tight in uttering one of his deepest groans over the illuminating 
horrors of that age of darkness. It does not detract from the pic- 
ture that, great as have been the triumphs of gas light, it is said even 
now to totter on its throne, and prophets tell us that before the end 
of the century which we now begin, it will probably have followed 
the tallow candles into the same unlamented obscurity. Prophets 
■are not agreed about this ; but even should this be so, history will 
'Carry to its credit the vast amount of public utility, and the many 
hours of useful employment or comfort in the factory, the study, or 
the sick room, which this simple application of chemical science 
gained in its day for the nineteenth century. 
But the dispersion of material darkness is but a slender illustra- 
tion of the triumphs of scientific discovery. Time and space are no 
longer the tyrants they were in 1783. I rather think that when 
our founders first met, they could hardly hope to hear by post from 
London under ten days, as Palmer’s mail coaches had not begun to 
Tun until 1789. It would be an interesting inquiry, if my limits 
permitted, to trace the moral and social effects of the change from 
the days when a London letter took even three days to reach Edin- 
burgh, and cost 13Jd Lord Cockburn lamented over the prospect 
of London being within fifteen hours of Edinburgh, as endangering 
the characteristics of our socialj community. His sagacity was not 
altogether at fault, but even that time has been reduced by a third, 
and I rather think we and the world are all the better of the change. 
But although larger victories were in store for the century, they 
came slowly. Both Boulton and James Watt were original mem- 
bers of the Eoyal Society, but it was more than thirty years before 
