On January 5, 1802, a syllabus of Davy’s course of lectures on Chemistry was printed at the press of the Royal Institution. He wrote for it the following advertisement:

It is generally admitted that the best method of teaching the sciences is to begin with simple facts, and gradually to proceed from them to the more complicated phenomena.

In the following pages, which contain the outlines of a course of lectures on Chemistry, an attempt has been made to employ such a method. Hence the abstruse doctrines concerning the imponderable fluids have been separated from the history of simple chemical action, and the applications of the science from the science itself. The classification of substances adopted is founded rather upon facts than analogies, and in consequence certain bodies have been placed among the simple principles which, from their resemblance to other bodies of known composition, have been generally arranged in the class of compounds. This is an imperfection, but on the principles assumed it could not easily be avoided. And it will be fortunate for the author if a discerning public should not discover many more important imperfections.

Part I. ‘The Chemistry of Ponderable Substances.’

Part II. ‘The Chemistry of Imponderable Substances.’ Div. 1, of Heat or Caloric; Div. 2, of Light; Div. 3, of the Electric Influence; Div. 4, of Galvanism.

Part III. ‘The Chemistry of the Arts.’ Div. 1, of Agriculture; Div. 2, of Tanning; Div. 3, of Bleaching; Div. 4, of Dyeing; Div. 5, of Metallurgy; Div. 6, of the Manufactory of Glass and Porcelain; Div. 7, of the Preparation of Food and Drink; Div. 8, of the Management of Heat and Light Artificially Produced.

He gave his introductory lecture to the morning course on General Chemistry on Thursday, January 21, and to the evening course on Outlines of Chemical Science and Chemistry of the Arts on February 9. The allusion to the Royal Institution with which he ended his first lecture was full of poetry.

‘In reasoning concerning the future hopes of the human species we may look forward with confidence to a state of society in which the different orders and classes of men will contribute more effectually to the support of each other than they have hitherto done. This state, indeed, seems to be approaching fast; for, in consequence of the multiplication of the means of instruction, the man of science and the manufacturer are daily becoming more assimilated to each other.

‘The arts and sciences also are in high degree patronised by the rich and privileged orders.

‘The unequal division of property and of labour, the differences of rank and condition amongst mankind, are the sources of power in civilised life—its moving causes and even its very soul. In considering and hoping that the human species is capable of becoming more enlightened and more happy we can only expect that the different parts of the great whole of society should be intimately united together by means of knowledge and the useful arts, that they should act as the children of one great parent with one determinate end, so that no power may be rendered useless, no exertions thrown away.

‘In this view we do not look to distant ages or amuse ourselves with brilliant though delusive dreams concerning the infinite improvability of man, the annihilation of labour, disease, and even death; but we reason by analogy from simple facts; we consider only a state of human progression arising out of its present condition; we look for a time that we may reasonably expect, FOR A BRIGHT DAY OF WHICH WE ALREADY BEHOLD THE DAWN.’

The following day Sir H. Englefield wrote to Mr. Underwood from Tilney Street, ‘Davy, covered with glory, dines with me at five to-day. If you could meet him it would give me great pleasure.’

At this dinner Sir Henry wrote a request to Davy to print his lecture.

A friend of Davy’s some years afterwards thus mentioned the success of his lectures to Dr. Paris: