it detracts from the quantity left, and the gratification it might yield to the giver. Not so with the advantages which flow from the increase of knowledge and the improvement of art: these are in their nature diffusive. "What is gained by one is communicable to all." The accumulation of a great fund of information by one individual, has a natural tendency, as it were, to overflow and spread its blessings on those around him. Its communication to others never lessens the store that is left for himself; and so far from the advantages which the possession of this store confers being exclusively monopolized by himself, they tend to the general benefit of all around him. Not only does his country share in the blessings which acquired knowledge confers, but distant nations participate in them. The productions of the industry of Britain have preceded her most enterprising travellers, and have penetrated into countries where even her name is unknown. Knowledge, too, is the peculiar property or patrimony of the poor. As the means of facilitating and increasing the productiveness of labour, it raises the real value of the inheritance of the poor-their powers of labour. To the rich, the owners of capital and land, it is comparatively of inferior value. So far from raising the rate of profit or interest, it has a tendency to lower it, and the rent of land is only raised by it in a slight degree, and after a series of years. Its highest advantages result to the poor man's estate-his labour. This estate it enlarges and fertilizes, and causes to yield a larger and a better crop.

Again, there is another property in knowledge, which it also boasts as a peculiar distinction-the circumstance of the existence of no known limit at which its further advancement must stop, and beyond which it cannot be extended. While the highest attainments of knowledge and discovery already made may be freely communicated to all the world, without lessening the stock we have left, we cannot perceive that any limits can. exist or any impediments arise to the future progress of science. While the further acquisitions which from time to time will hereafter be made, may, in like manner, be as freely communicated. The exertions of industry have bounds beyond which they cannot extend; being limited by the physical strength of

:

the human faculties. The quantity of land from which sustenance for mankind may be raised, has precise and well-determined limits. Capital, too, is not susceptible of endless accumulation; and, if it were so, the quantity that can be employed with advantage in aiding and supplanting labour, has, in every stage of the progress of knowledge, a limit, though neither ever yet arrived at, nor even precisely ascertained, beyond which the employment of a larger quantity would not only cease to be of use, but prove an encumbrance to the workman. Accordingly, under any given state of knowledge, objects of wealth, the produce of labour, are limited in their supply by the strength of our faculties, and the quantity of land and capital necessary to their production. But knowledge, from the increase of which labour may raise a larger produce with the same labour, capital, and land, unlike these, has no limits that are known, or can be anticipated its sources seem inexhaustible. Notwithstanding all that has yet been done, by far the greater part of natural phenomena remain unexplained; and nature, in relation to our faculties, still remains boundless and unexplored. The number of species of plants, of animals, and minerals, which man has hitherto rendered subservient to his wants, are as nothing in comparison of the multitude that are known to exist, but which as yet he has been unable to apply to useful purposes. But the more our knowledge is extended, the more we discover valuable properties in things which before were regarded as worthless. The number of combinations and changes of circumstances which it is possible to make, and from which we know not but that useful results may spring, are beyond the power of computation to estimate. Contrary to what obtains in the material world, the more that information is diffused, the quicker it advances; both from the greater number of persons engaged in its pursuits, and from the more extended and varied field of observation subjected to examination; while, with every improvement in methods of observation, or in the construction of scientific apparatus, their power of scrutinizing, comparing, and discriminating increases. Every new principle discovered in science, brings into view whole classes of facts which would never otherwise have attracted our notice at all, at the same

time that it throws new lights on many which were observed before. Thus, every fresh acquisition, instead of contributing to exhaust the subject, and to narrow the field of further inquiry; instead of lessening the number of new discoveries, or diminishing the power of making further acquisitions, seems only to enlarge that power, to extend the field of observation, to facilitate and lead the way to richer discoveries, to render our progress more certain, and accelerate its rapidity.

While, thus, every thing tends "to raise our hopes of the future progress of science," and, "to hold out the cheering prospect of difficulties diminishing as we advance, instead of thickening around us in increasing complexity," it is impossible to doubt that the arts of life, and the opulence of society, so intimately connected with and dependent as they are on science, must advance in corresponding measure with it. The laws of nature, then, are that mine whence intellectual treasures are drawn; which whether or not it repay to the particular individuals the industry and talent exerted in working it, will unquestionably do so to mankind at large, in a higher degree than any other. In comparison of this, the richest mines of silver or gems, that have ever been known, or can be imagined, sink into worthlessness and insignificance. The stock of practical knowledge, the accumulation of the labours of ages, which constitutes the intellectual wealth of the species, and which one generation bequeaths to another, although not in itself accounted property or wealth, is, notwithstanding, an inheritance of inestimably higher value than any bequest, however large, of actual objects of material wealth, the creation of the industry and the accumulation of the providence of individuals. It is a power of acquiring wealth, which is inexhaustible and imperishable in its nature; and which, so far from being destroyed or worn out by use, is rather augmented and sharpened thereby. From such qualities, this power is more to be coveted than the transitory gifts of fortune. As it is through this power that material wealth is originally acquired, so it is by the same power that wealth is preserved, and the means afforded of accumulation. Without it, wealth, if it had been previously created and accumulated, would soon become de

* Discourse, &c. by Sir J. F. W. Herschel.

stroyed and lost. Whoever, then, adds to this stock of knowledge, by exhibiting a method of augmenting the quantity or excellence of the produce of industry, without a greater sacrifice for its acquisition, in effect, adds to the fortune or annual income of every consumer, by as large a sum as would purchase the excess of the larger or better supply so brought within his reach. It is a fortune, too, entailed by the most secure guarantees, which the improvidence of the most determined spendthrift cannot dissipate, nor his self-indulgence consume. Such then is the track in which the efforts of philanthropy may be exerted with the most certain and effectual results, with the most extensive and the most permanent benefits to mankind.

Thus it is that the first and most important, though hitherto too little noticed, circumstance which arrests our attention, as affecting the condition of man, and the supply of the necessaries and conveniences of life afforded him, is the knowledge that he possesses of the laws of nature, with the useful combinations of circumstances which it is in his power to bring about, and the consequent skill and judgment with which his labour and capital are applied. Amongst the causes on which the opulence of societies depends, we cannot assign to knowledge too distinguished a place. By its means, labour is facilitated and abridged, its effective powers augmented, the resources of man husbanded, and articles turned to useful purposes which would otherwise, through ignorance, have been of little or no value, by all which, production is raised to its utmost height in quantity, excellence, variety, and suitableness to our wants.

But as yet science has been very imperfectly applied to prac

tice.

"Numbers of truths have remained unfruitful from want of application, which might have added new comforts and embellishments to life, and the populace and the sages of the same country seem to belong to different periods of the human mind; while the theories of the one are derived from the knowledge of the present day, and the practices of the other are regulated by the ignorance of long-past ages." Not only is this the case in our own, it is the same in other countries. The sciences of Europe have not been adopted in the practice of the arts in

* Advancement of Society p. 92.

Asia and Africa; whence we fail to derive from the commerce with those countries the inestimable advantages which would accrue from such adoption, in the multiplication and improvement of the peculiar products which we purchase there.

Even when sufficient information and skill to direct industry with the happiest success are possessed by those engaged in the arts, they may still not be applied in practice. Sometimes. they have not been applied through want of freedom and security, proceeding from trade regulations and combinations, or the danger of popular vengeance from misguided workmen. Labourers may be misemployed, or employed in a way unfavourable to the most productive exertion of their powers, through the prejudices, the misconceived views of self-interest, or through the poverty of the workmen. The same thing may happen through the legislative restraints and regulations which fiscal measures, or false views of policy, may have imposed. Unquestionably, the produce of industry must be less in proportion to the misapplication of labour, and the disadvantageous circumstances against which it has to contend.

In a subject which, as Dr. Chalmers expresses it, "aims at the diffusion of sufficiency and comfort through the mass of the population, by the multiplication and enlargement of the outward means and materials of human enjoyment," it would not be strictly in place to enlarge on the collateral benefits accruing from the intellectual pleasures which the pursuit, the acquisition, and the communication of knowledge afford. Yet it may be permitted in passing to draw attention to these pleasures, as well as to the intimate connexion which subsists between the physical and the moral sciences, and consequently the moral effects, as promoting individual happiness, both independently of opulence and as derivable from it, which result from their cultivation. Suffice it, then, to say of knowledge, that it is itself a source, at once, of intellectual gratification, and of elevation of moral character, independently of being a means of promoting opulence. It is a means of civilizing and humanizing mankind, and of uniting them together, as fellow-citizens, in the "republic of letters," in one common bond of association and of interest.