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

THE SUN, LONDON,

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THE MANCHESTER ATHENIEUM.
MANCHESTER, Nov. 17.—Last evening the annual
soiree of the Manchester Athenseurn Lock place in the
Tote-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 wo 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. Cross-
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.
Gleig, Mr. Alison, and others.
The noble CHAIRMAN proceeded to address the assem-
blage as fullows:—Ladies and gentlemen, appearing
beforcyotz, as I do this evening, altogether unconnected
with you;by residenee or representation—a stranger
peraonally to almost: every one at ound me, and dif-
fering from, Many ainongst 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
sheuld always bind together those engaged 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.)—I 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 an 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 aro 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 object 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 if 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 ego 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 3ou think ho 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 bo desirous to explore the root of
y our 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 bo told that
the study of science is too hard and difficult for hours
of leisure—for hours that must bo 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, he 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; bat, 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 aro 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-
ville 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—one certainly not to be approved for
many parts of his public life, and still less to be
esteemed or excused for what he termed his philoso-
phical opinions, but still a man of great and surpassing
genius—I 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
noortbaidtsmriroeuttihdosteheplsaanmetae
ctehnattrarlolslulni—ke
stupendous, that array of fixed stars hung up in the vast
whence we wwdieeffmemraeay not gaze on another object still more
may
not
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,
g
I
nr
go
bla
rnodk e t rße
na
td up." p
so
pn
e.
k i nSge eoh
are f
the praise that belongs to the study of astronomy, testi-
itimthpe
imports me
me
testi-
monies much higher as well as much more ancient than
this might be adduced. There is, I have always thought
and which thence
it, a most noble and striking thought of Cicero in that
part of those unrivalled essays on philosophy which ho
wrote in his villa of Tusculum,
derived their name, wherein he says, "that in his
the man who is able by the force of his
intellect to calculate the movements of the great celes-
tial bodies, and decide in what orbits they are
about to
opinion
run, shows that his mind is akin in its imam
were fashioned and termed." Surely,, that is a striking
thought from a heathen writer on whom the light of
the
words re-
velation had never shone. But we who know in
his
r
that Almighty Being by whom those celestialtal ebodies
nature to
words of unerring truth that God created man in
own image, we can to such a thought as this affix 3
higher and a holier meaning. Sure I am, at least,that
more clearly th
e
immortal frail being here below, and manifest
in no one pursuit does man elevate himself more abovei
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,
hive not flourished in many ages and countries, but
which, en 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 un-
frequent topic of ridicule; now we fled its discoveries
treated with general respect and esteem. Sixty years
ago, for example, Bishop Watson, a man of no mean order
of
n used
emd itnod ,
sayof,
aoyf,
,n, ot h
ai nt ctohnes
gi deeoriaobglies t iwn
ht eol
ae ct
tteuma 1p
taetdt ati
on ms
peeen tus.,
late on the internal formation of tho globe, reminded
him only of the gnat, which, perched on the shoulder of
an elephant, would, by the roach of its tiny puncture,
vval übldoeloaw any man
mTanheosfe common were the
education
presume to tell the internal structure of the majestic ani
m-
wneoardtisonofor BishopjudginWenattsnosne.
similar language now? Is there any one who would men-
tion, but in terms of respect and esteem, the researches
of such teen, for instance, as Dean }Ackland or Sir
c
remind
thought
mai
moetv
ueio
ngi
dhrt
could
omrtwunhanl
internal
many among
vttoaehr
nothing
csoi
bnet
nueggrr
eebp3s
beyond
eoyooafuobr
nact
hhdhb
leoe
ytsw. T h
Charles Lyell? See, too, what great and curious results
globe,
owrhese when
conjectured.ei
oh
Intaohyfewe arvhscei
trleotyihfan pi
need
idbn swtne oaro
matter,s-tf
strata, as they are called, decline into the earth at a cer-
tain angle, and then at a vast interval of space re-appear
nswi itimhl
ar! a
prar mangle,loahy ae
hr
isia,i
at
nti
ytd
approaching
has
spexactlyit
gus i
nmdt
oi l
pa die
eeae,
would bo the structure of the globe, miles and miles
lower than the foot of the most adventurous miner ever
trod.—(Cheers.) Of course, I can glance only briefly
at such a topic, but if it were developed by those bet-
ter able by scientific attainments to do it justice, you
would see that even on that ground on which the
the deriders of geology meant to rely, it presented the
scene of one ofs our proudest intellectual triumphs.--
(Cheers.) In 'ipeaking of geology I would not disjoin