ledge, it becomes me to remember, that we are to-day, for the first time assembled within these walls, to pay our tribute to literature and science at large; that the doors are opened to every range of scientific inquiry, and classical erudition; to every attainment which can expand, embellish, and improve the mind of man. Under these circumstances, I say, it becomes me to speak in more general terms; and I shall, therefore, endeavour to set forth a few of the advantages that society may expect to derive from this munificent establishment; to shew how far it merits your patronage; and to convince you that, in the work we are undertaking, regard is not merely to be had to its immediate consequences, but that we are to consider its influence upon aftertimes, and to look to the benefits that it is to diffuse upon generations yet to come. And I am convinced that I shall be able to shew, that in establishing this Institution in the heart of the city of London, you have done a great and glorious deed for posterity; you have opened a fountain which will never be dried up, but will continue to flow into, and fructify, the commonwealth of science for ages yet to come.

The projectors of this Institution deserve our first thanks; they have shewn the fallacy of the opinion entertained by the greatest political philosophers; and have demonstrated, that high commercial rank and wealth are not incompatible with enlarged minds, liberal views, and cultivated understandings. We are told that, considering the mercantile eminence of their country, and persuaded that whatever increases the splendour, increases equally the strength and activity of commerce, they thought it due to the dignity and glory of the empire, that her commercial metropolis should be graced by a literary and scientific Institution, on a liberal and extensive plan. They judged, and wisely did they judge, that such an establishment would make commerce acquainted with science; and that, by their approximation, each would draw forth and invigorate whatever there might be of latent energy and power in the other. We accordingly find that, under this liberal and creditable feeling, they submitted their views to the consideration of their fellow-citizens, and solicited their co-operation; that their design was universally approved, and that a subscription of considerable amount was almost immediately raised within the walls of our city.

Such was the auspicious beginning of this establishment. A portion of land was then purchased, and on the 4th of November, 1815, the first stone of the building in which we are now assembled was lowered into its place by the Mayor of London. As the building advanced, its growing wants were met with proportionate liberality, and a magnificent library and amphitheatre, with their various auxiliary apartments, have been at length brought under the same roof, constituting one of the noblest ornaments of the city of London.

I shall first ask your permission to dilate somewhat upon the immediate advantages and benefits which may reasonably be expected to result from this undertaking, and to crown the splendid exertions of its founders and patrons; let us here, however, pause for a moment, to express our earnest wish and humble hope that the great Disposer of events may approve of the motives of this assembly; that His blessing may rest upon the work; that He may render it, in our hands, subservient to the great and disinterested purposes of extensive utility, which it is its sole object to attain; and that in future times this edifice may be the glory of our children's children; that commerce and science may here be entwined in perpetual friendship, uniting their strength for the glory of the empire, the stability of the throne, the perpetuity of our glorious constitution, and the prosperity of the people at large.

The intimate union that subsists between science and commerce, and between literature and the arts; the individual, and, therefore, the public improvement to which this union tends; its influence in elevating, in the rank of nations, the countries that are blessed by its happy influence, are truths inculcated by our knowledge of the world, and with illustrations of which every page of history teems. But history also records the downfall and degradation of learning; she shews us that, where Science and the Arts once flourished in all their vigour, and grew, as it were, in a native soil, they subsequently withered and decayed, leaving little else behind than a few solitary relics, which, like the ruins of some great edifice or temple, in the midst of a barren plain, tell us that magnificence once dwelt, where we now see nothing but sterility and desolation. Such are the truths recorded by the unerring pen of history, which has shown that even when knowledge and taste had been interwoven with the very manners and habits of a. people, and disseminated amongst large and prosperous nations, frequent instances have occurred of their utter loss and obliteration; insomuch that their very existence would be problematical, were it not for the undeniable proofs, which they have left of their former excellence, and which, measured by the powers and capacities of succeeding ages, appear like the productions of a superior race of beings.

Thus, as one ofour poets has beautifully expresssed it, "the dawn of human improvement seems to have smiled upon that fabric which it was ultimately to destroy, as the morning sun gilds and beautifies those masses of frost-work, which are destined to vanish before its meridian splendour."

Reasoning upon these things, historians have sometimes gloomily denounced those happy emotions which a nation rising to eminence is apt to produce in a liberal and humane mind: they have talked to us of the declension of our natural energies, and have told us, that all our struggles and exertions, though tending to temporary splendour, will ultimately be involved in a desolate abyss; that the productions of age, can stand in no competition with the vigorous sallies of youth. From the days of Homer, this has been the burthen of the poet's song, and the opinion has, in many cases, received the deliberate sanction of the philosopher. Adverting to this subject, a late eloquent writer has observed, that although opinions mostly obtain credit by their antiquity, this opinion, in particular, derives no advantage from that circumstance; on the contrary, that very antiquity is the most decisive proof that it is wholly unfounded. If, says he, the human race had declined from its pristine vigour between the period of the Trojan war and the time of Homer, to what a degree of imbecility must it have fallen in the reign of Augustus. "And if, in like manner, the complaint of the Roman poets, of the deterioration of the human race be well founded, to what a miserable state of degradation must it before this time have been reduced. After so long a descent, is it possible that nature could still have produced a Dante or an Ariosto, a Corneille or a Racine, a Shakspeare or a Milton; names which amply show that her vigour is not exhausted, but that she still continues to bring forth the fruits of the mind no less than those of the earth?"

If we ascend from poetry to those nobler and more divine energies of the human mind which are employed in the search after truth; in removing the film from the intellectual eye of man; in developing the mechanism of nature by experimental research; we have only to mention the names of Kepler, Galileo, and Copernicus; of Boyle, Bacon, Newton, and Hooke, to show, that here nature has neither retrograded, nor remained stationary. It is folly, therefore, to assert, that the golden age has passed away, and that man is suffering corporeal and intellectual degradation. On the contrary, let us hope, that if not baffled by its own perverseness, the human race is really tending, in regular and progressive course, towards improvement, and that every age of the world is more enlightened than that which preceded it. We know that history does not exactly bear us out in these hopes, but we shall presently be able to trace the cause of such disappointment, and to calculate upon the probability of its continuance.

Among the causes that have contributed to those vicissitudes of the human energies of which we have been speaking, some have, I think, ignorantly adduced local situation and climate; but let us remember one contradictory instance only, and it will be sufficient to confute such a notion. "Let us remember that the Greeks rose from the very dregs of barbarisın till they became the masters of the world, and that that very Greece which was so long the garden of Europe, afterwards became a sterile desert. Bœotia lay in the vicinity of Attica, and consequently enjoyed the same climate; yet were the Bœotians as dull as the Athenians were acute. The splendour too of Grecian science was diffused not only through Greece itself, but extended to colonies far distant from the metropolis, and very different with respect to climate*."

There are writers who have told us, that there is a tide in the arts and sciences which always tends to their elevation and declension; and further, that when they come to perfection in any state, they necessarily decline, and seldom or never revive in that nation where they had formerly flourished. To the general truth of these remarks, history and experience oblige us to assent; but, instead of resting content with the fact, and acquiescing in its necessity, let us endeavour to trace it up to its cause, and to ascertain whether such fluctuations are really ordained by nature, or whether they arise from the untoward propensities of man.

In thus viewing the subject, it will presently be apparent, that there are direct and immediate causes for that obliteration and declension of science and art that we have just adverted to; that it has always been indicative of a degradation in the moral character of the people; characteristic of declining liberty, and of overwhelming oppression; of the rise of despotism, and the fall of freedom: That wherever these causes have co-operated, the best feelings and energies of the human mind have been blasted; effeminacy and indolence have slided into the place of manliness and activity; vice has gained the ascendancy over virtue; and all that is estimable in the human character, all social virtues and public spirit, have dwindled into selfishness and deceit. It is then to public morals and public liberty that we are to look up as the shield and helmet of the arts and sciences, and as constituting the anchor of their salvation. Under a jealous and suspicious government, be it republican or monarchical, the faculties and energies of the people are palsied and frozen up. Under a free constitution, the mind is neither agitated by apprehension, nor deadened by jealousy and suspicion; freedom of inquiry and of expression are interwoven with its very existence, and all the noblest characters of man shoot forth with vigour and blossom in security.

In the inaugural oration which was spoken by the eloquent and learned Counsel to this Institution, at the ceremony of its foundation,

* See the Abbé Andres, as quoted in Mr. Roscoe's Discourse, delivered at the opening of the Liverpool Royal Institution.