Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science / delivered by the President, John Phillips ... in the Town Hall, at Birmingham, September 6, 1865.

  • Phillips, John, 1800-1874.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science / delivered by the President, John Phillips ... in the Town Hall, at Birmingham, September 6, 1865. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    -Assembled for the third time in this busy centre of industrious England, amid the roar of engines and the clang of hammers, where the strongest powers of nature are trained to work in the fairy chains of art, how softly falls upon the ear the accent of Science, the friend of that art, and the guide of that industry ! Here, where Priestley analysed the air, and Watt obtained the mastery over steam, it well be¬ comes the students of nature to gather round the standard which they carried so far into the fields of knowledge. And when, on other occasions, we meet hi quiet colleges and Academic halls, how gladly welcome is the union of fresh discoveries and new inventions with the solid and venerable truths which are there treasured and taught. Long may such union last; the fair alliance of cultivated thought and practical skill; for by it labour is dignified and science fertilized, and the condition of human society exalted ! Through this happy union of science and art, the yountr life of the British Association,—one-third of a century,—has been illustrated by discoveries and enriched by useful inventions in a degree never