"Gentlemen," said Sir Humphry, "I am overpowered by these reiterated proofs of your approbation. You have overrated my merits. My success in your cause must be attributed to my having followed the path of experiment and induction discovered by philosophers who have preceded me: willingly would I divide your plaudits with other men of science, and claim much for the general glory of scientific discovery in a long course of ages. "Gentlemen, I might dwell at some length upon the great increase of wealth and power to the country, within the last half century, by scientific invention, which never could have existed without coal-mines:--I shall refer only to the improvement in the potteries, to the steam-engine, and to the discovery of the gas lights. "What an immense impulse has the steam-engine given to the arts and manufactures! How much has it diminished labour, and increased the real strength of the country, far beyond a mere increase of population! By giving facilities to a number of other inventions, it has produced even a moral effect in rendering capital necessary for the perfection of labour, credit essential to capital, and ingenuity and mental energy a secure and dignified species of property. "Science, Gentlemen, is of infinitely more importance to a state than may at first sight appear possible; for no source of wealth and power can be entirely independent of it; and no class of men are so well able to appreciate its advantages as that to which I am now addressing myself. You have not only derived from it the means of raising your subterraneous wealth, but those also of rendering it available to the public. "Science alone has made pit-coal such an instrument in the hands of the chemist and mechanic; it has made the elements of fire and water perform operations which formerly demanded human labour, and it has converted the productions of the earth into a thousand new forms of use and beauty. "Gentlemen, allow me to observe, in conclusion, that it was in pursuing those methods of analogy and experiment, by which mystery had become science, that I was fortunately led to the invention of the Safety-lamp. The whole progress of my researches has been registered in the Transactions of the Royal Society, in papers which that illustrious body has honoured by their biennial medal;[47] in which I can conscientiously assert, that I have gratefully acknowledged even the slightest hints or offers of assistance which I have received during their composition. [47] The Rumford Medal, to be hereafter noticed.