Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen,—

The cordial reception I have met with from you demands my warmest acknowledgments. You only, I assure you, do me justice in giving me credit for a deep interest in whatever may tend to promote the advancement of either the moral or the material good of the people of this country; but you are doing so in too flattering a manner, and attach too high a value to any service that it may have been in my power to render in this cause. I feel it would be a high privilege to be associated in any way with those who are making such noble efforts—and nowhere with more energy and perseverance than in Birmingham—for the improvement of their fellow-countrymen; and to be allowed to witness the success of those efforts will be a more than sufficient reward for any assistance I may myself have been enabled to afford.

[Lord Calthorpe having read the Address of the Council of the Institute,

His Royal Highness said—]

My Lords and Gentlemen,—

I thank you very sincerely for your address. It is with more than ordinary pleasure that I have accepted your kind invitation to take part in the ceremony which is this day to mark the first step towards the establishment of an Institution, from which I join with its warmest supporters in looking for the most advantageous results.

I cannot, indeed, doubt for a moment that the expectations of those who believe that the “value and dignity of human labour will receive a manifold increase, when guided by the light of scientific knowledge,” will be amply realized. And it is most gratifying to me to hear the expression of your opinion that the desire for the “keener and more comprehensive study of the principles by which the exercise of man’s productive powers is controlled,” from which you anticipate such advantage, has been stimulated by the Great Exhibition of 1851, to my connection with which you have been pleased to allude in such flattering terms.

I cannot forget that the example of such Industrial Exhibitions had been already set by this town, and with the best results; or that to the experience so acquired the Executive Committee of the greater undertaking of ’51 were much indebted in carrying that work to a successful issue. As Birmingham was thus foremost in giving a practical stimulus to the works of Art and Industry, so she is now one of the first in the field to encourage a scientific study of the principles on which those works depend for success.

I trust with you, and confidently believe, that the moral as well as the material welfare of this great community will be advanced by the union, for scientific objects, of men of all classes and of all opinions, in such institutions as that of which I am to-day to have the honour of laying the first stone. And most heartily do I join with you in congratulating the country that not even such a war as that in which we are now engaged, calculated as it is to enlist our warmest sympathies and to engage our more immediate interest, can divert Englishmen from the noble work of fostering the Arts of Peace, and endeavouring to give a wider scope to the blessings of freedom and civilization.

[Lord Calthorpe, the President of the Institute, proposed “The Health of Prince Albert, and the other Members of the Royal Family.”

His Royal Highness replied—]

I am much obliged to you, my Lord, for your proposing my health in such kind terms, and I cannot but be much gratified by the cordial reception which you, gentlemen, have been pleased to give to this toast.

It has been a great pleasure to me to have been able to participate, in however trifling a degree, in a work which I do not look upon as a simple act of worldly wisdom on the part of this great town and locality, but as one of the first public acknowledgments of a principle which is daily forcing its way amongst us, and is destined to play a great and important part in the future development of this nation and of the world in general: I mean the introduction of science and art as the unconscious regulators of productive industry.

The courage and spirit of enterprise with which an immense amount of capital is embarked in industrial pursuits, and the skill and indefatigable perseverance with which these are carried on in this country, cannot but excite universal admiration; but in all our operations, whether agricultural or manufacturing, it is not we who operate, but the laws of nature, which we have set in operation.

It is, then, of the highest importance that we should know these laws, in order to know what we are about, and the reason why certain things are, which occur daily under our hands, and what course we are to pursue with regard to them.

Without such knowledge we are condemned to one of three states: either we merely go on to do things just as our fathers did, and for no better reason than because they did them so; or, trusting to some personal authority, we adopt at random the recommendation of some specific, in a speculative hope that it may answer; or lastly—and this is the most favourable case—we ourselves improve upon certain processes; but this can only be the result of an experience hardly earned and dearly bought, and which, after all, can only embrace a comparatively short space of time, and a small number of experiments.

From none of these causes can we hope for much progress; for the mind, however ingenious, has no materials to work with, and remains in presence of phenomena, the causes of which are hidden from it.

But these laws of nature, these divine laws, are capable of being discovered and understood, and of being taught and made our own. This is the task of science; and, whilst science discovers and teaches these laws, art teaches their application. No pursuit is therefore too insignificant not to be capable of becoming the subject both of a science and an art.

The fine arts (as far as they relate to painting, sculpture, and architecture), which are sometimes confounded with art in general, rest on the application of the laws of form and colour, and what may be called the science of the beautiful. They do not rest on any arbitrary theory on the modes of producing pleasurable emotions, but follow fixed laws—more difficult perhaps to seize than those regulating the material world, because belonging partly to the sphere of the ideal, and of our spiritual essence, yet perfectly appreciable and teachable, both abstractedly and historically, from the works of different ages and nations.

No human pursuits make any material progress until science is brought to bear upon them. We have seen accordingly many of them slumber for centuries upon centuries; but from the moment that science has touched them with her magic wand, they have sprung forward, and taken strides which amaze, and almost awe, the beholder.

Look at the transformation which has gone on around us since the laws of gravitation, electricity, magnetism, and the expansive power of heat have become known to us. It has altered our whole state of existence,—one might say, the whole face of the globe. We owe this to science, and to science alone; and she has other treasures in store for us, if we will but call her to our assistance.

It is sometimes objected by the ignorant that science is uncertain and changeable, and they point with a malicious kind of pleasure to the many exploded theories which have been superseded by others, as a proof that the present knowledge may be also unsound, and, after all, not worth having. But they are not aware that, while they think to cast blame upon science, they bestow, in fact, the highest praise upon her.

For that is precisely the difference between science and prejudice: that the latter keeps stubbornly to its position, whether disproved or not, whilst the former is an unarrestable movement towards the fountain of truth, caring little for cherished authorities or sentiments, but continually progressing, feeling no false shame at her shortcomings, but, on the contrary, the highest pleasure, when freed from an error, at having advanced another step towards the attainment of Divine truth—a pleasure not even intelligible to the pride of ignorance.

We also hear, not unfrequently, science and practice, scientific knowledge and common sense, contrasted as antagonistic. A strange error! for science is eminently practical, and must be so, as she sees and knows what she is doing, whilst mere common practice is condemned to work in the dark, applying natural ingenuity to unknown powers to obtain a known result.

Far be it from me to undervalue the creative power of genius, or to treat shrewd common sense as worthless without knowledge. But nobody will tell me that the same genius would not take an incomparably higher flight, if supplied with all the means which knowledge can impart; or that common sense does not become, in fact, only truly powerful when in possession of the materials upon which judgment is to be exercised.

The study of the laws by which the Almighty governs the Universe is therefore our bounden duty. Of these laws our great academies and seats of education have, rather arbitrarily, selected only two spheres or groups (as I may call them) as essential parts of our national education: the laws which regulate quantities and proportions, which form the subject of mathematics, and the laws regulating the expression of our thoughts, through the medium of language, that is to say, grammar, which finds its purest expression in the classical languages. These laws are most important branches of knowledge, their study trains and elevates the mind, but they are not the only ones; there are others which we cannot disregard, which we cannot do without.

There are, for instance, the laws governing the human mind, and its relation to the Divine Spirit (the subject of logic and metaphysics); there are those which govern our bodily nature and its connection with the soul (the subject of physiology and psychology); those which govern human society, and the relations between man and man (the subjects of politics, jurisprudence, and political economy); and many others.

Whilst of the laws just mentioned some have been recognized as essentials of education in different institutions, and some will, by the course of time, more fully assert their right to recognition, the laws regulating matter and form are those which will constitute the chief object of your pursuits; and, as the principle of subdivision of labour is the one most congenial to our age, I would advise you to keep to this speciality, and to follow with undivided attention chiefly the sciences of mechanics, physics, and chemistry, and the fine arts in painting, sculpture, and architecture.

You will thus have conferred an inestimable boon upon your country, and in a short time have the satisfaction of witnessing the beneficial results upon our national powers of production. Other parts of the country will, I doubt not, emulate your example; and I live in hope that all these institutions will some day find a central point of union, and thus complete their national organization.

Thanking you once more for having allowed me to assist at the foundation of your Institution, I, with all my heart, wish it growth, vigour, and prosperity.