The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-27 00:00:00

DR. WHEWELL'S LECTURE AT THE
SOCIETY OF ARTS.

Some time since it was suggested to the council of
the Society of Arts, by Prince Albert, that they might yet
materially promote the objects of the Great Exhibition, by
offering to the members a aeries of lectures upon the influ-
ence which it might probably exercise upon various branches
of the arts. In accordane with this su g•cion they. have
u.
made arrangements with several eminent scientific men fur
the delivery of leztures upon special subjects. The first of
these by Dr. Whewell, Mager of Trinity College, and
author of the " History and Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences," was delivered yesterday evening.
The lecturer commenced by apologizing for the position
in which he stood as a critic of the great display of the
world's arts, both on the ground of his not having been in
any way connected with the management of the Exhibi-
tion, as well as from the difficulty
.of writing or speaking
after any great drama. In art, as in literature, work must
precede criticism.
This succession of Science to Art is riot fantastical and
arbitrary. There were great artificers in metal before the
laws of chemistry were known—wines were made before the
phenomena of fermentation were understood—great archi-
tectural works were carried out before the laws of mechan-
ical force were discovered. The earlier ages did—the
latter explained.

The lecturer then proceeded to draw an analogy be-
tween the state of art iu the middle ages and the growth of
science out of that, and the late Exhibition, and the scienti-
fic moral to be drawn front it theoretically by the subac-
quent lecturers, stud practically in its actual effects. lle
then pointed out that, in spite of our boasted superiority
over so-called barbarous countries, our manufactures are
inferior to theirs in beauty and elegance of design
and ornament, instancing as examples, the tissues of India,
Persia, &c. Re considered that this difference consisted in
the fact that there the arts are ter the few, with us they arc
for the many. lie had been told by a well-known writer
on machinery and manufactures, that More commencing
his inquiries, he expected to find the most delicate and
beautiful machinery employed in the making of fine and
costly wares, but Maud the contrary to be the case. The
greatest refinement of machinery was found to be applied to
the manufacture of those wares which were con-
' Bunted in largest quantity, such as cotton tissues,
Here the tnachiue, with its millions of lin-
e gers, works for the whole community ; there
tens of thousands of fingers work fur one. This apparently
anomalous fact dues not therefore at all interfere with the
reality of our superiority—does nut affect that mighty idea
ins nation's life progress.
The classification WAS the neat subject touched upon.
After alluding to the successive different attempts of the
French commissioners in arranging their expositions-Ist,
according to a geographical method ; 2nd, according to the
nature of the materials; 3rd, scientific; and Rh, that of
M. Dupin, in which the objects were classified according to
their relations to man it, life, he gave a long description of
the classification of our late Exhibition, and highly eulogised
the admirably practical characters which he considered
would be still of very great service to manufacturers by
tending to introduce a settled common language ; he illus-
trated the possibility of this by reference to the sixes cf the
teeth of wheels and screws, fice.
On taking a general view of the classes into which the
objects of the Exhibition were divided there were found to
be some remarkable characters. For example, the first
class, mining and mineral products, contains materials
which have been used in an art known since the earliest
antiquity ; the second class, or chemical manufactures, con-
tains products of the most modern art. Tuba' Cain was an
artificer in brass and iron long before it was known that the
extraction of metals depended upon the separatiou of the
oxygen and sulphur of the ore ; and art is still in
some respects in advance of science in this department,
as in the case of the Swedish iron and Damascus blailss.
In the second class, art is the daughter of science. All the
immense factories of Liverpool and \Vales owe their exist-
ence to science, which was built up in the laborabsries of
Scheele, Kirwan, and Lavoisier. The material used is still
the same as were used in antiquity ; the discovery of new
arrangements arid combinations is the only kind of pro-
gress. Gold and iron are still the rulers of the world ; the
progress in connexion with them consists in finding new
deposits. But in the vegetable world it is otherwise. The
collection of imports exhibited by the townsmen of liver-
pool show that its wealth is far from being exhausted or
even known. Caoutchouc and gutta perdu& wets instanced
us striking examples of the capabilities of this class of natu-
ral production.
The lecturer concluded by expressing a hope that the
assemblage of men from all parts of the world might have
the harmonising and beneficial effects which it seems to
premise.