Although devoted as Davy was to the pursuits of science, he entered warmly into all political plans for improving the condition of the people, and advancing the progress of civilization. "No one," says his friend Mr. Poole, "was less a sectarian, if I may use the word, in religion, politics, or in science. He regarded with benevolence the sincere convictions of any class on the subject of belief, however they might differ from his own. In politics, he was the ardent friend of rational liberty. He gloried in the institutions of his country, and was anxious to see them maintained in their purity by timely and temperate reform." Indeed, in carefully analysing his mind, and tracing its developement, it appears that benevolence was one of its leading elements; the form in which it displayed its energies varying with the varying conditions of intelligence. In boyish life, his imagination, acting upon his zeal for the welfare of his species, delighted, as we have seen, in the ideas of encountering dragons, and quelling the might of giants; but as fancy paled with the light of advancing years, and the judgment, presented distincter appearances, the philanthropic antipathy which had been directed to those chimeras of the nursery, was transferred to the two great oppressions of society, and in Superstition he saw the dragons--in Despotism, the giants that spread mischief and misery through the world. Some of his early manuscripts are still in existence; and I shall here introduce a passage from one which has been lately transmitted to me by a gentleman resident in Penzance. The most trifling record becomes interesting, when we can trace in it the germ of a particular opinion, or the first symptom of a quality which may afterwards have distinguished its possessor. "Science is as yet in her infancy; but in her infancy she has done much for man. The discoveries hitherto so beneficial to mankind have been generally effected by the energies of individual minds:--what hopes may we not entertain of the rapid progress of the happiness of man when illumination shall become general--when the united powers of a number of scientific men shall be employed in discovery! Every thing seems to announce the rapid advance of this period of improvement. The time is approaching when despotism and superstition, those enormous chains that have so long enfettered mankind, shall be annihilated,--when liberated man shall display the mental energies for which he was created. At that period, nations shall know that it is their interest to cultivate science, and that the benevolent philosophy is never separated from the happiness of mankind."