cesses of most of the useful arts, which you call chemical, have been invented and improved without any refined views, without any general system of knowledge. Lucretius attributes to accident the discovery of the fusion of the metals; a person in touching a shell-fish observes that it emits a purple liquid as a dye, hence the Tyrian purple; clay is observed to harden in the fire, and hence the invention of bricks, which could hardly fail ultimately to lead to the discovery of porcelain; even glass, the most perfect and beautiful of those manufactures you call chemical, is said to have been discovered by accident; Theophrastus statęs, that some merchants who were cooking on some lumps of soda or natron, near the mouth of the river Belus, observed that a hard and vitreous substance was formed where the fused natron ran into sand.

The Unknown. I will readily allow that accident has had much to do with the origin of the arts as with the progress of the sciences. But it has been by scientific processes and experiments that these accidental results have been rendered really applicable to the purposes of common life. Besides, it requires a certain degree of knowledge and scientific combination to understand and seize upon the facts which have originated in accident. It is certain, that in all fires alkaline substances and sand are fused together and clay hardened; yet for ages after the discovery of fire glass and porcelain were unknown, till some men of genius profited by scientific combination often observed but never applied. It suits the indolence of those minds which never attempt anything, and which probably if they did attempt anything would not succeed, to refer to accident that which belongs to genius. It is sometimes said by such persons, that the discovery of the law of gravitation was owing to accident; and a ridiculous story is told of the falling of an apple, as the cause of this discovery. As well might the invention of fluxions or the architectural wonders of the dome of St Peter's, or the miracles of art, the St John of Raphael, or the Apollo Belvidere, be supposed to be owing to accidental combinations. In the progress of an art, from its rudest to its most perfect state, the whole pro

cess depends upon experiments. Science is, in fact, nothing more than the refinement of common-sense making use of facts already known to acquire new facts. Clays, which are yellow, are known to burn red; calcareous earth renders flint fusiblethe persons who have improved earthenware made their selections accordingly. Iron was discovered at least one thousand years before it was rendered malleable; and from what Herodotus says of this discovery, there can be little doubt that it was developed by a scientific worker in metals. Vitruvius tells us, that the ceruleum, a colour made of copper, which exists in perfection in all the old paintings of the Greeks and Romans, and on the mummies of the Egyptians, was discovered by an Egyptian king; there is, therefore, every reason to believe that it was not the result of accidental combination, but of experiments made for producing or improving colours. Amongst the ancient philosophers many discoveries were attributed to Democritus and Anaxagoras; and, connected with chemical arts, the narrative of the inventions of Archimedes alone, by Plutarch, would seem to show how great is the effect of science in creating power. In modern times the refining of sugar, the preparation of nitre, the manufacturing of acids, salts, &c., are all results of pure chemistry. Take gunpowder as a specimen; no person but a man infinitely diversifying his processes and guided by analogy could have made such a discovery. Look into the books of the alchemists, and some idea may be formed of the effects of experiments. It is true, these persons were guided by false views, yet they made most useful researches; and Lord Bacon has justly compared them to the husbandman, who, searching for an imaginary treasure, fertilised the soil. They might likewise be compared to persons who, looking for gold, discover the fragments of beautiful statues, which separately are of no value, and which appear of little value to the persons who found them; but which, when selected and put together by artists, and their defective parts supplied, are found to be wonderfully perfect and worthy of conservation. Look to the progress of the arts since they have been enlightened by a system of science, and observe with what rapidity they have

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advanced. Again, the steam-engine in its rudest form was the result of a chemical experiment; in its refined state, it required the combinations of the most recondite principles of chemistry and mechanics, and that excellent philosopher who has given this wonderful instrument of power to civil society, was led to the great improvements he made, by the discoveries of a kindred genius on the heat absorbed when water becomes steam, and of the heat evolved when the steam becomes water. Even the most superficial observer must allow in this case a triumph of science, for what a wonderful impulse has this invention given to the progress of the arts and manufactures in our country! how much has it diminished labour,-how much has it increased the real strength of the country! Acting as it were with a thousand hands, it has multiplied our active population, and receiving its elements of activity from the bowels of the earth, it performs operations which formerly were painful, oppressive, and unhealthy to the labourers, with regularity and constancy, and gives security and precision to the efforts of the manufacturer. the inventions connected with the steam-engine, at the same time that they have greatly diminished labour of body, have tended to increase power of mind and intellectual resources. Adam Smith well observes that manufacturers are always more ingenious than husbandmen; and manufacturers who use machinery will probably always be found more ingenious than handicraft manufacturers. You spoke of porcelain as a result of accident; the improvements invented in this country, as well as those made in Germany and France, have been entirely the result of chemical experiments, the Dresden and the Sèvres manufactories have Leen the work of men of science, and it was by multiplying his chemical researches that Wedgewood was enabled to produce at so cheap a rate those beautiful imitations, which, while they surpass the ancient vases in solidity and perfection of material, equal them in elegance, variety, and tasteful arrangement of their forms. In another department, the use of the electrical conductor was a pure scientific combination, and the sublimity of the discovery of the American philosopher was only equalled by the happy appli

cation he immediately made of it. In our own times it would be easy to point out numerous instances in which great improvements and beneficial results connected with the comforts, the happiness, and even life of our fellow-creatures, have been the results of scientific combinations; but I cannot do this without constituting myself a judge of the works of philosophers who are still alive, whose researches are known, whose labours are respected, and who will receive from posterity praises that their contemporaries hardly dare to bestow upon them.

But, waiving all common utility, all vulgar applications, there is something in knowing and understanding the operation of Nature, some pleasure in contemplating the order and harmony of the arrangements belonging to the terrestrial system of things. There is no absolute utility in poetry; but it gives pleasure, refines and exalts the mind. Philosophic pursuits have likewise a noble and independent use of this kind; and there is a double reason offered for pursuing them; for, whilst in their sublime speculations they reach to the heavens, in their application they belong to the earth; whilst they exalt the intellect, they provide food for our common wants, and likewise minister to the noblest appetites and most exalted views belonging to our nature. The results of this science are not like the temples of the ancients, in which statues of the gods were placed, where incense was offered and sacrifices were performed, and which were presented to the adoration of the multitude, founded upon superstitious feelings; but they are rather like the palaces of the moderns, to be admired and used, and where the statues, which in the ancients raised feelings of adoration and awe, now produce only feelings of pleasure, and gratify a refined taste. It is surely a pure delight to know how and by what processes this earth is clothed with verdure and life-how the clouds, mists, and rain are formed -what causes all the changes of this terrestrial system of things, and by what divine laws order is preserved amidst apparent confusion. It is a sublime occupation to investigate the cause of the tempest and the volcano, and to point out their use in the

economy of things, to bring the lightning from the clouds and make it subservient to our experiments-to produce as it were a microcosm in the laboratory of art, and to measure and weigh those invisible atoms, which, by their motions and changes, according to laws impressed upon them by the divine intelligence, constitute the universe of things. The true chemical philosopher sees good in all the diversified forms of the external world. Whilst he investigates the operations of infinite power guided by infinite wisdom, all low prejudices, all mean superstitions, disappear from his mind. He sees man an atom amidst atoms, fixed upon a point in space, and yet modifying the laws that are around him by understanding them; and gaining, as it were, a kind of dominion over time, and an empire in material space, and exerting on a scale infinitely small a power seeming a sort of shadow or reflection of a creative energy, and which entitles him to the distinction of being made in the image of God and animated by a spark of the divine mind. Whilst chemical pursuits exalt the understanding, they do not depress the imagination or weaken genuine feelings; whilst they give the mind habits of accuracy, by obliging it to attend to facts, they likewise extend its analogies, and, though conversant with the minute forms of things, they have for their ultimate end the great and magnificent objects of Nature. They regard the formation of a crystal, the structure of a pebble, the nature of a clay or earth; and they apply to the causes of the diversity of our mountainchains, the appearances of the wind, thunder-storms, meteors, the earthquake, the volcano, and all those phenomena which offer the most striking images to the poet and the painter. They keep alive that inextinguishable thirst after knowledge, which is one of the greatest characteristics of our nature; for every discovery opens a new field for investigation of facts, shows us the imperfection of our theories. It has justly been said, that the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded. This strictly applies to chemical inquiries; and hence they are wonderfully suited to the progressive nature of the human intellect, which, by its increasing efforts to acquire