The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-18 00:00:00

THP SUN,

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LONDON,

THE MANCHESTER ATHENEUM.
MANCHESTER, Nov. 17.—Last evening the annual
soiree of the Manchester Atherreum to, k pace in the
Town-hall; Lord Viscount Mahon in the chair. The
room, capable of accommodating between 600 and 700,
was crowded by a well-dressed assemblage, among whom
were many ladies.
On the platform we observed Mr. M. Philips. the
mayor of Manchester, the late mayor, Mr. Brown, M.P.,
Mr. T. M. Gibson, M.P.. Mr. Bright, M.P., Mr. Cress-
ley, Mr. Brotherton, M.P., &c.
Lord Mahon on taking the chair was loudly cheered.
Letters of apology for absence having been read from the
Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Nugent, the Rev. G. R.
Mr. Alison, and others.
The noble CHAIRMAN proceeded to address the assem-
blage as follows:—Ladies and gentlemen, cpp.earing
before youots I do this evening, altogether unconnected
with you by residence or representation—a stranger
personally to almost every one at ound me, and dif-
fering from many amongst you in views and opinions
on public affairs—l yet believe that these very
circumstances afford only a clearer token, a more
convincing proof, of that link of brotherhood which
should always bind together those enraged in the pur-
suit of arts and letters or of science.—(Cheers.) When
you invited me to my present high position, and when I
accepted the honour proposed to me, you felt, and I felt,
that men animated by the same desire for mental culti-
vation should not be deemed strangers to one another,
and that party differences should be laid aside for the
time, frankly and freely, whenever the question arises by
what means knowledge may be best appreciated and most
successfully diffused.—(Cheers.)—l think I may say that
meetings like the present, besides their first main object,
are also in their collateral effects highly beneficial. To
whatever opinions or denominations we belong, we are
all, I fear, inclined to judge too little favourably of each
other. Surely, then, it is no slight advantage of au as-
semblage like this—inviting to one common field of ac
tion labourers both far and near—that we shall depart
with kindlier feelings, with a belief in each other's rec-
titude of purpose in our different paths, and with senti-
ments of increased personal friendship and goodwill.
The institution whose anniversary we are met to celebrate
has for its object to diffuse as widely as possible the ad-
vantages derived from the study of literature and science.
In both these departments the obj, ct is to render the
library and the other means of information as ample and
as well selected as, they can be. Now, first, as to science,
I cannot but feel it almost superfluous that I should say
a single word to recommend its study to such a meeting
as I see before me. For, if you look around you, if you
see the greatness and importance which Manchester has
attained, and it you consider within how limited a period
that attainment has been achieved, you cannot, I am
sure, forget that this greatness and this importance are
mainly owing to the discoveries of modern science
(Cheers.) Consider what rapid advances these disco-
veries in science have enabled you to make. Little more
than a century ago the young Pretender marched through
your town and lodged at a house standing not many
years since in Market-street ; I ask you, if it were pos-
sible for him to revisit these scenes, do you think he
would recognise them again ? Do you think he would
see any resemblance between the not considerable
country town, as this then was, which he so easily
marched through, and what it has now become—this im-
mense capital of our mercantile enterprise, this vast mart
of active wealth, this swarming hive of busy industry ?
—(Cheers.) What would he have said to those
lines of factories which have 'arisen on every side,
affording honourable employment to hundreds of
thousands of our people, and the beneficial effects
of whose produce have been felt in the remotest
corners of the globe ?—(Cheers.) When I see
then, so much progress made, and know that this pro-
gress is due to science—when the discoveries of science
form, in fact, the chronicles and annals of your city—
can I doubt for a moment that the study of science re-
quires no words of mine to call forth encouragement from
you—that you will all be desirous to explore the root of
your own greatness, the groundwork of your own im-
portance?— (Cheers.) In no place, therefore, do I think
that recommendations to the study of science can be less
required than in the city where I have now the honour
of addressing you.—(Cheers.) Nor let me be told that
the study of science is too hard and difficult for hours
of leisure—for hours that must be taken from many
other active pursuits. Let me remind those ladies who
have graced and honoured us with their presence this
evening, that one of themselves—one of the ladies of
England, Mrs. Somerville—(Cheers)—is not more re-
markable for the depth and accuracy of her own scien-
tific knowledge than for the still higher and rarer gift of
making the avenue to that knowledge clear and delight-
ful to others.—(Cheers.) There is another writer of the
present day—Professor Nichol, of Glasgow—who
deserves the same praise, that while his own
scientific attainments are deservedly held in high
estimation, be has written popular works which
make the first elements of science easy of ac-
quirement and within the reach of all. I do not mean, of
course, that in science, more than in any other pursuit,
high skill and proficiency can be attained without severe
labour and exertion. I am speaking only of the first
rudiments, the earliest stages, of science. Indeed my
own acquirements would not qualify me at all to speak
of other than these; but, speaking so restrictedly of the
mere elements of science, I can assert from my own ex-
perience that their study is not incompatible with other
pursuits, and that it may be the source, even when
pursued no further. of high intellectual pleasure.—
(Cheers.) When I alluded to science as having peculiar
claims to encouragement at Manchester, I referred of
course to the progress of mechanics, or more practical
science. But there are other branches of which it is the
boast and pride that they are confined to no one age, to
no one clime, to no one country, but may receive pursuit
and encouragement in all. The names of Mrs. Somer-
vdle and Professor Nicholl, which I have ventured to
mention, naturally suggest to me the science in which
they have attained such eminence—the study of astro-
nomy. Now even the first elements of astronomy are
capable of affording intellectual pleasure of no ordinary
kind. I remember that an English statesman of
bygone years—ono certainly not to be approved for
many parts of his public lite, and still less to be
esteemed or excused for what ho termed his philoso-
phical opinions, but still a man of great and surpassing
genius—l mean Lord Bolingbroke—goes so far as to
enumerate among the consolations of exile that there is
no spot on earth where the study of astronomy may not
be pursued. His words on the subject are marked by so
much eloquence that I am sure you will forgive me if I
attempt to repeat them. Lord Bolingbroke says, in his
" Reflections on Exile," '` There is no part of the world
whence we may not admire those planets; that roll like
ours in different orbits round the same central sun—
whence we may not gaze on another object still more
stupendous, that array of fixed stars hung up in the vast
space of the universe, innumerable suns whose beams
enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which revolve
around them; and while I am wrapt in contemplations
such as these, while my soul is thus borne up to Heaven,
it imports me little what ground I tread upon." Such
are the words of Lord Bolingbroke. But in speaking of
the praise that belongs to the study of astronomy, testi-
monies much higher as well as much more ancient than
this might be adduced. There is, I have always thought
it, a most noble and striking thought of Cicero in that
thich
hence
pf
ee
derived their name, wherein he says, "that in his
itah osheisunvriiiviaalleedf
e siss aUyS Cs U Un Mphilosophyand
i wh
bout t
tial bodies, and decide in what orbits they are o
opinion the man who is able by the forceoefelehsi-s
intellect to calculate the movements of the great
run, shows that his mind is akin in its immortal natureto
a
that Almighty Being by whom those celestial bodies
were fashioned and formed." Surely,, that is striking
his
n
ail a
thought from a heathen writer on whom the light. of
there-
velation
words of unerring truth that God created man had never shone. But we who know
own image, we can to such a thought as this fix
in no one pursuit does man elevate t. e
higher and a holier meaning. Sure hlanamse,ifatmleearset,ahtehvaef.
his frail being here below, and manifest more clearly h
immortal spark within him, than in those studies of
astronomy which enable him, an atom as it were in
creation, 'living in a world, after all, but another atom in
creation, to calculate with unerring precision the precise
second of time when one of these celestial bodies will
appear to eclipse another in the sky, or tell the precise
instant of time when one of the great fixed stars shall
appear to shoot across the disc of his telescope.
—(Loud cheers.) Are not those achievements of
the human mind worthy of praise, worthy of cele-
bration, worthy of attainment?—(Loud cheers.) Sure
I am, too, that no one study, if properly pursued, is
better adapted to raise up our minds in humble adora-
tion to that Almighty Being who has made us what we
are, and has permitted us, though at an infinite distance,
to prosecute with so much advantage the discovery and
knowledge of His wonderful works.—(Cheers.) There
are other branches of science, which, unlike astronomy,
have not flourished in many ages and countries, but
which, on the contrary, are remarkable for the great
and rapid strides which they have made in our own days.
Not, indeed, that astronomy has not made great pro-
gress too, but there are sciences which have, as it were,
started into being altogether within the memory of man.
Such a science is geology. See what great triumphs of
geological discovery have been achieved, and within how
narrow a space of time! We cannot, perhaps, measure
this progress more clearly than by marking the altered
feelings with which men of education and knowledge
speak of geology. In the last century it was not an en-
.frequent topic of ridicule; now we find its discoveries
treated with general respect and esteem. Sizity years
ago, for example, Bishop Watson, a man of no mean order
of mind, of no inconsiderable intellectual attainments,
used to say," that the geologist who attempted to specu-
late on the internal formation of the globe, reminded
him only of the gnat, which, perched on the shoulder of
an elephant, would, by the reach of its tiny puncture,
presume to tell the internal structure of the majestic ani-
mal below." These were the words of Bishop Watson.
W. ould any man of common education or judgment use
language now? Is there any one who would mem-
tion, but in terms of respect and esteem, the researches
of such men, for instance, as Dean Buckland or Sir
Charles Lyell? See, too, what great and curious results
have crowned those researches. Take the very point of
the internal structure of the globe, on which it was
thought that nothing beyond the reach of actual obser-
vati9n
many amongcouldever
)e
be probably conjectured.
whenonje layersctured. of
Inemeadtt noter
remind ,
strata, as they are called, decline into the earth at a cer-
tain angle, and then at a vast interval of space re-appear
at a similar angle, and at exactly similar distances be-
tween similar layers, it has been found possible to calcu-
late, with a probability approaching to certainty, what
would be the structure of the globe, miles and miles
lower than the foot of the most adventurous miner ever
at
et r s
au
bc
er
siaedheteyor psts
hiecoia,eftnbtui
fit
trod.—(Cheers.) Of course, I can glance only briefly
ei f
aittt awi
nemr ee
adt
se v et
el o pdeed bt yj
atslitoi
esee, byeeta-
geeveeinegyo nte
etahnatt t
eg rroeui
yn,d
it
wouldthed
on
r ews ehni te ehd theth e
scene of one of our proudest intellectual triumphs.—
(Cheers.) In epeakiag of geology I would not disjoin