With regard to the special objects of the Institution, the theory of practical mechanics and of manufactures, he said:
We must be more practical than academies of science and more theoretical than societies for the improvement of arts; while we endeavour at the same time to give stability to our proceedings by an annual recurrence to the elementary knowledge which is subservient to the purposes of both and, as far as we are able, apply to practice the newest lights which may from time to time be thrown on particular branches of mechanical science. It is thus that we may most effectually perform what the idolised sophists of antiquity but verbally professed—to bring down philosophy from the heavens and to make her an inhabitant of the earth.
We may venture to affirm that out of every hundred of fancied improvements in arts or in machines ninety at least, if not ninety-nine, are either old or useless; the object of our researches is to enable ourselves to distinguish and to adopt the hundredth. But, while we prune the luxuriant shoots of youthful invention, we must remember to perform our task with leniency, and to show that we wish only to give additional vigour to the healthful branches, and not to extirpate the parent plant.
He spoke of the repository of models as being a supplementary room for apparatus exhibited and described in the lectures, and ‘where a few other articles may perhaps deserve admission.’ He mentioned the library and the Journals as free from commercial shackles, but made no mention of the workshops nor of the education of artisans.
When all the advantages which may reasonably be expected from this Institution shall be fully understood and impartially considered, it is to be hoped that few persons of liberal minds will be indifferent to its success or unwilling to contribute to it and to participate in it.
To that regulation which forbids the introduction of any discussions connected with the learned professions I shall always most willingly submit and most punctually attend. It requires the study of a considerable portion of a man’s life to qualify him to be of use to mankind in any of them, and nothing can be more pernicious to individuals or to society than the attempting to proceed practically upon an imperfect conception of a few first principles only. In physic the wisest can do but little, and the ignorant can only do worse than nothing; and anxiously as we are disposed to seek whatever relief the learned and experienced may be able to afford us, so cautiously ought we to avoid the mischievous interference of the half-studied empiric. In politics and in religion we need but to look back on the history of kingdoms and republics, in order to be aware of the mischiefs which ensue when fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
With regard to his prospectus and lectures he said:
For the sake of those who are not disposed to undertake the labour of following with mathematical accuracy all the steps of the demonstrations on which the doctrines of the mechanical sciences are founded, I shall endeavour to avoid in the whole of this course of lectures every intricacy which might be perplexing to a beginner, and every argument which is fitter for the closet than for a public theatre. Here I propose to support the same propositions by experimental proofs, not that I consider such proofs as the most conclusive, or as more interesting to a truly philosophic mind, than a deduction from general principles, but because there is a satisfaction in discovering the coincidence of theories with visible effects, and because objects of sense are of advantage in assisting the imagination to comprehend, and the memory to retain, what in a more abstracted form might fail to excite sufficient attention. With regard to the mode of delivering these lectures, I shall in general entreat my audience to pardon the formality of a written discourse in favour of the advantage of a superior degree of order and perspicuity. It would unquestionably be desirable that every syllable advanced should be rendered perfectly easy and comprehensible even to the most uninformed, that the most inattentive might find sufficient variety and entertainment in what is submitted to them to excite their curiosity, and that in all cases the pleasing, and sometimes even the surprising, should be united with the instructive and the important. But, whenever there appears to be a real impossibility of reconciling these various objects, I shall esteem it better to seek for substantial utility than temporary amusement; for if we fail of being useful, for want of being sufficiently popular, we remain at least respectable; but if we are unsuccessful in our attempts to amuse, we immediately appear trifling and contemptible. It shall, however, at all times be my endeavour to avoid each extreme, and I trust that I shall then only be condemned when I am found abstruse from ostentation or uninteresting from supineness. The most difficult thing for a teacher is to recollect how much it cost himself to learn, and to accommodate his instruction to the apprehension of the uninformed. By bearing in mind this observation I hope to be able to render my lectures more and more intelligible and familiar, not by passing over difficulties, but by endeavouring to facilitate the task of overcoming them; and if at any time I appear to have failed in this attempt, I shall think myself honoured by any subsequent inquiries that my audience may be disposed to make.
The division of the whole course of lectures into three parts was originally suggested by the periodical succession in which the appointed hours recur, but it appears to be more convenient than any other for the regular classification of the subjects. The general doctrines of motion and their application to all purposes, variable at pleasure, supply the materials of the first two parts, of which the one treats of the motions of solid bodies and the other of those of fluids, including the theory of light. The third part relates to the particular history of the phenomena of nature, and of the affections of bodies actually existing in the universe independently of the art of man, comprehending astronomy, geography, and the doctrine of the properties of matter, and of the most general and powerful agents that influence it.
The synthetical order of proceeding from simple and general principles to their more intimate combinations in particular cases, is by far the most compendious for conveying information with regard to sciences that are at all referable to certain fundamental laws. For these laws being once established, each fact, as soon as it is known, assumes its place in the system, and is retained in the memory by its relation to the rest as a connecting link. In the analytical mode, on the contrary, which is absolutely necessary for the first investigation of truth, we are obliged to begin by collecting a number of insulated circumstances, which lead us back by degrees to the knowledge of original principles, but which, until we arrive at these principles, are merely a burden to the memory. For the phenomena of nature resemble the scattered leaves of the Sibylline prophecies; a word only, or a single syllable, is written on each leaf, which, when separately considered, conveys no instruction to the mind, but when, by the labour of patient investigation, every fragment is replaced in its appropriate connexion, the whole begins at once to speak a perspicuous and a harmonious language.
On July 5 he requested leave of the managers to be absent during the months of August and September, taking care in the meantime to provide sufficient matter for the publication of the Journals. He went with the late Duke of Richmond and his brother to France. At Paris he was introduced to the First Consul at the Institute.
This year he was appointed foreign secretary of the Royal Society, and he held this office for the remainder of his life. He refused the appointment of secretary in 1812, because he thought it would interfere with his medical reputation.