I trust with you, and confidently believe, that the moral as well as the material welfare of this great community will be advanced by the union, for scientific objects, of men of all classes and of all opinions, in such institutions as that of which I am to-day to have the honour of laying the first stone. And most heartily do I join with you in congratulating the country that not even such a war as that in which we are now engaged, calculated as it is to enlist our warmest sympathies and to engage our more immediate interest, can divert Englishmen from the noble work of fostering the Arts of Peace, and endeavouring to give a wider scope to the blessings of freedom and civilization.
[Lord Calthorpe, the President of the Institute, proposed “The Health of Prince Albert, and the other Members of the Royal Family.”
His Royal Highness replied—]
I am much obliged to you, my Lord, for your proposing my health in such kind terms, and I cannot but be much gratified by the cordial reception which you, gentlemen, have been pleased to give to this toast.
It has been a great pleasure to me to have been able to participate, in however trifling a degree, in a work which I do not look upon as a simple act of worldly wisdom on the part of this great town and locality, but as one of the first public acknowledgments of a principle which is daily forcing its way amongst us, and is destined to play a great and important part in the future development of this nation and of the world in general: I mean the introduction of science and art as the unconscious regulators of productive industry.
The courage and spirit of enterprise with which an immense amount of capital is embarked in industrial pursuits, and the skill and indefatigable perseverance with which these are carried on in this country, cannot but excite universal admiration; but in all our operations, whether agricultural or manufacturing, it is not we who operate, but the laws of nature, which we have set in operation.
It is, then, of the highest importance that we should know these laws, in order to know what we are about, and the reason why certain things are, which occur daily under our hands, and what course we are to pursue with regard to them.
Without such knowledge we are condemned to one of three states: either we merely go on to do things just as our fathers did, and for no better reason than because they did them so; or, trusting to some personal authority, we adopt at random the recommendation of some specific, in a speculative hope that it may answer; or lastly—and this is the most favourable case—we ourselves improve upon certain processes; but this can only be the result of an experience hardly earned and dearly bought, and which, after all, can only embrace a comparatively short space of time, and a small number of experiments.
From none of these causes can we hope for much progress; for the mind, however ingenious, has no materials to work with, and remains in presence of phenomena, the causes of which are hidden from it.
But these laws of nature, these divine laws, are capable of being discovered and understood, and of being taught and made our own. This is the task of science; and, whilst science discovers and teaches these laws, art teaches their application. No pursuit is therefore too insignificant not to be capable of becoming the subject both of a science and an art.