Page:Inaugural address, delivered before the members of the Victorian Institute, on Friday the 21st of September, 1854 (IA inauguraladdres00barr).pdf/14

10 of gravitation; to weigh the invisible air and to note the delicate organism of microscopic animalculæ.

The navigator, the engineer, the chemist, are alike indebted to him; while on the other hand, the useful arts would stand still, the mechanic be no more than the primitive artificer were it not for the successive substitutions or additions of forces, economical or supplementary, to construct which genius informs him; and his hand would be confined to the repetition of that labour which has no excitement of novelty and is unrelieved by the prospect of improvement.

Thus Science claims Art as its handmaiden; Art reverences Science as her preceptor; each knit to the other with a benevolent sympathy.

In seeking to acquire an intimacy with the secrets of either, even in the seemingly motiveless or injudicious study of them, some collateral or accidental good may be expected, While from the neglect or unwise disregard of them nothing can proceed but regret. Although the great truth may lie beyond our reach, the honest and pains-taking search for it may profit much. Although the investigator may fail to reach the ultimate goal of his wishes, he may be entertained by many a pleasing diversion on the way.

Discoveries the most memorable have arisen accidentally and almost unbidden. The stain left on the lips of a dog which had feasted on an insignificant shell-fish drew attention to that dye which tinctured the robes kings and conquerors were proud to wear. We are told that some Phœnician sailors, having, for want of other fuel wherewith to cook their food on the sea shore, had recourse to some blocks of alkali with which their vessel was laden, were astonished to behold it, when acted on by heat, dissolve into translucent streams, and assume with the sand the undesigned form of vitrification; giving the first hints for the manufacture of glass, now so indispensable an article of use, ornament, and luxury. The