an air-pump, or an electrical
machine.

There certainly never was any period in which _natural knowledge_ made
such a progress as it has done of late years, and especially in this
country; and they who affect to speak with supercilious contempt of the
publications of the present age in general, or of the Royal Society in
particular, are only those who are themselves engaged in the most
trifling of all literary pursuits, who are unacquainted with all real
science, and are ignorant of the progress and present state of it.[1]

It is true that the rich and the great in this country give less
attention to these subjects than, I believe, they were ever known to do,
since the time of Lord Bacon, and much less than men of rank and fortune
in other countries give to them. But with us this loss is made up by
men of leisure, spirit, and ingenuity, in the middle ranks of life,
which is a circumstance that promises better for the continuance of this
progress in useful knowledge than any noble or royal patronage. With us,
politics chiefly engage the attention of those who stand foremost in the
community, which, indeed, arises from the _freedom_ and peculiar
_excellence_ of our constitution, without which even the spirit of men
of letters in general, and of philosophers in particular, who never
directly interfere in matters of government, would languish.

It is rather to be regretted, however, that, in such a number of
nobility and gentry, so very few should have any taste for scientifical
pursuits, because, for many valuable purposes of science, _wealth_ gives
a decisive advantage. If extensive and lasting _fame_ be at all an
object, literary, and especially scientifical pursuits, are preferable
to political ones in a variety of respects. The former are as much more
favourable for the display of the human faculties than the latter, as
the _system of nature_ is superior to any _political system_ upon earth.

If extensive _usefulness_ be the object, science has the same advantage
over politics. The greatest success in the latter seldom extends farther
than one particular country, and one particular age; whereas a
successful pursuit of science makes a man the benefactor of all mankind,
and of every age. How trifling is the fame of any statesman that this
country has ever produced to that of Lord Bacon, of Newton, or of Boyle;
and how much greater are our obligations to such men as these, than to
any other in the whole _Biographia Br