The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-01 00:00:00

DR. LYON PL A YFAIR AT BI BM IN GHAINI.
On Thursday night Dr. Lyon Playfair, President of the
Midland Institute, delivered in the Town Hall, the
inaugural address of the session 1870-1. Dr. Lyon
Playfair on rising from his seat was received with cheers.
These having subsided, he read an address of which the
following is an abstract I do not remember that I
ever began an address by a confession of in:
ability ; for a man has no right to lecture to an audience
unless he is capable, and ought to sink his per-
sonality in the subject matter before him. But when I
began to reflect how I ought to address an assemblage of
Birmingham men and women with any fitness to the occa-
sion for which we are assembled, I frankly confess that I
regret ' having accepted the high office which you
bestowed upon me. I knew how much I had learned in
past times by visiting your manufactories, and how much
remains for me to learn from the triumphs of industry in
a town where a Watt and a Boulton, a Priestley and a
Murdoch, an Elkington ind a Chance, a Muntz, a Hardman
and a Winfield have laboured, so that it seemed to me a
mockery that my small knowledge of science should be
brought in comparison with your great industrial achieve-
ments. I became the more discouraged when I recollected
the character and the ability of the man who occupied the
chair at your last meeting. On this subject at least our
sympathies are in common, for your esteem and admi-
tion for our late president are not greater than mine.
Charles Dickens was a man of tender heart, who mourned
for the sorrows, the injustices, and ills of mankind. He was
a man of strong heart, too, and loved la .cruslitheinj U -
tices and tear out the ills from society with his righteous
indignation. Hence he was an' active social reformer, and
produced, by his writings, many more effective reforms
than profound politicians. There is scarcely one of his
books in which he did not aim to eradicate or amend some
evil under which society was suffering. The high admi-
nistration and the lazy clerks of the Circumlocution
Office, the maladministrators of the Poor Law, the pom-
pous pleaders in courts of law, the dawdlers iu the Court
of Chancery, the upholders of all sorts of beadledom, the
minister of religion when he was blatant and hypocritical,
the professor of philanthrophy when he traded on the woes
of mankind, the sinecurist like the deputy chaff wax of
the Patent Office, the idle and the criminal who preyed
upon the earnings of society—all came under his lash, until
they reformed their ways and served society with honesty
and efficiency. Charles Dickens was not a mere novelist.
A great man, of noble sympathies and beliefs, has de-
parted from us— one who was of the people, andi worked
for the people—for their profit and advantage, as well as
for their entertainment and recreation—and who tried
to unite all classes of society, because his own breadth
covered them all. One of his last public appearances
was at our Institute, and our period for mourning has
not yet passed away. All these mixed feelings confirmed
me in my distrust that I had not done wisely in acting
as your president. Bnt gradually I separated myself
and my shortcomings from the' subject matter of
your imitation, and became emboldened to ad-
dress you on the intimate union between
science and labour. This union is far from being simple.
It is not science which creates labour, or the industries
flowing from it. On the contrary, science is the progeny
of the industrial arts on the one side, and on the other of
the experiences and perceptions which gradually attach
themselves to these arts. So that the evolution of science •
from the arts is the first circumstance of human progress,
which, however, quickly receives development and impulse -
from the science thus evolved. Industrial labour, then,
one of the parents, and science is the child ; but, as often
happens in the world, the son becomes richer than the
father, and raises his position. It may not be the waste
of an hour if we consider these relations more closely.
Had I not been frightened with the length of the word,
I would have entitled my discourse the inosculation
of the arts and sciences. In one sense that means their
embrace ; but in another it means junction with open
mouths, as when two arteries join and mutually pour their
contents into each ether. Well, this word has found a
practical expression in the minds of the Birmingham peo-
ple when they founded this Institute ; and though it is
long and pedantic, I will take it after all. The industrial
arts spring clearly out of the necessities of man. Man is
peculiarly helpless as regards his own personal and physical
belongings. With an intellect which, when developed,
approaches that of an angel, he has a naked, unprotected
body like that of an earthworm. Covered neither with
chitine, nor thick hide, nor with fur or feathers, he looks
as helpless at his birth as the unfledged gosling ; but,
unlike it, never gets a better protection from wind or
weather as he grows older. Neither has he any natural
tools with which he can labour. A man has neither in
hands nor feet tools sufficient for his protection or suste-
nance. We know of no race of savages so absolutely
wild as to possess no arts. One of the rudest races of
savages the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, robe
themselves by plastering yellow clay over their bodies ;
but even they have arts, for their canoes are large, and
fitted for heavy seas, their fishing implements and arrows,
and their shell chips for shaving, are effective. Such
degraded tribes as the Diggers of the American conti-
nent, or the Bosjesmans of Africa, have primitive
tools and primitive arts, which grow slowly only be-
cause their surroundings have stunted the development
of intellectual observation and application. These are
the faculties which enable man to take a position
so much higher than that of all the animals around
him, notwithstanding their natural physical advantages.
Man has sometimes been described as a fire making
animal, because none other than he has learned how to
use it. Fire occurs naturally under various' circumstances
on the earth, so that it wasquite necessary for the ancients
to invent the fable of Prometheus, who had to climb for
it to heaven and bring it back in a 'narthex staff, or stem
of the giant fennel, which has a tinder that would keep it
alight. In fact, fire is the essential condition for industrial
development, and without it man would be a miserably
helpless creature. It is his first substitute for want of fur
and feathers as a protection against the inclemency of the
weather. It is the origin of all his arts. He throws stones
into the fire, and then casts them, when heated, into water,
and thus boils his food. Soon he finds out that the water
will boil in vessels placed upon the fire ; but the vessels,
being made of wood, burn, so he plasters them over with
clay ; the clay is baked by the heat, and he thus discovers
pottery. Thus, step by step arise the arts—so slowly,
indeed, that an acute writer like Archbishop Whateley
believed that no savage tribe improved the arts, unless by
introduction from another tribe of higher civilisation and
culture. This is certainly a mistake. The growth of arts
is indeed very slow ; but few savage tribes lose a step in
progress when it has been made. The stone age was suc-
ceeded by the metal age. But in the progress of
metallurgy it was comparatively easy to use silver, gold,
and copper, which occur native, ready to hand for use ;
and a far greater achievement to smelt a metal for its
ores. The extraction from an earth involves an immense
amount of experience already gained. It does not suffice
that the material should be common around you. Clay,
for instance, is found in every part of the world, and con-
tains about half its weight of a useful metal. Yet it is
less than twenty years since that we succeeded in extract-
ing aluminum from clay, so as to use it for industrial pur-
poses. Dr. Playfair then proceeded to contend that science
and art are only developed after long observation and
experience ; and that a nation is observant or unobservant
according to the necessities of its existence. He con-
cluded as follows :—lf a nation do not keep herself on a
level with scientific discoveries, which are always mak-
ing and never ending, she must be content to slip back
while the world is advancing. • A nation ought to resemble
the globe on which we live, by being always in motion.
That motion, however, is not merely of one kind, a
mere turning round and round on its own axis for
ever and ever in the same way. The world, while it
does turn round, moves onwards with a rapid resist-
less sweep. Since I began to address you this evening,
our world has moved in rotation only by a few hundred
miles, but its onward motion has advanced it more than
eighty thousand miles through space. It is this forward
advance for which nations should strive. No fear of the
progress of the world, though nations should stand still
and vanish out of sight. Knowledge does not perish be-
cause nations decay. Just as an object attracted by the
earth falls to it, with an ever-increasing velocity, so does
human progress advance with an accelerating speed to-
wards knowledge. Pascal said truly, " The entire succes-
sion of men, through the whole course of ages, must be
regarded as one man, always living and incessantly
learning." This is a true enpression of human progress.
Nations, like the ripples on the sand, may stand
for a time, or make their impress so permanent that :we
find them, as we do ancient ripple marks, in a fossil state,
for study in future ages, or they may be obliterated alto-
gether by a reflux wave ; yet the tide of knowledge is
flowing steadily onwards, and will cover the land in its
appointed time.
The address occupied about an hour and twenty-five
minutes in reading. Dr. Playfair was frequently cheered,
and resumed his seat amid loud applause.

Prince Hassam Paella and Prince Mainnoud Bey
landed at Southampton yesterday in the steamer which
brought the Indian mails.
Dr.Hoffmeis ter has received her Majesty's commands
to proceed to Darmstadt, with a view of being present at
the approaching accouchement of her Royal Highness
Princess Louis of Hesse. It is anticipated that this
event will occur early in the present month.—Lancet.
The Prince and Princess of Wales visited the
Sutheriandshire volunteer competition at the Dunrobin
ranges on Wednesday. The Duke and Duchess of Suther-
land, and other distinguished visitors now at Dunrobin,
were also present. The shooting continued on Thursday,
and on that evening a grand ball took place at the castle
in honour of the Royal visitors.
A. notice has been issued by the Post Office inti-
mating that it is not legal to use for the purpose of prepay-
ment of postage any embossed or.impressed stamp cut out
or otherwise separated from any cover, paper, or card, on
which it was embossed. The Post Office authorities
declare that such stamp on a letter, newspaper, publica-
tion, packet, or card, will be disregarded.

The great clerical protest against the admissi.)n
by the Dean of Westminster of the Rev. G. Vance Smith,
the Unitarian Minister of York, and one of the Biblical
Revisionists, to the Holy Communion in Westminster
Abbey on the first day of the Revisionists' meeting, is to
be presented tq the Archbishop of Canterbury in a few
days.-v- • - •