e 52: Ibid. (1852).]

[Footnote 53: _Royal Commission, First Report_ (_Mines_), p. 27.]

[Footnote 54: Ibid., p. 21.]

[Footnote 55: _Royal Commission, Second Report_ (_Trades and
Manufactures_), p. 147.]

[Footnote 56: Ibid., pp. 155-6.]

[Footnote 57: _Midland Mining Commission, First Report_, p. 34.]

[Footnote 58: Ibid., p. 91.]

[Footnote 59: Ibid., p. 44.]

[Footnote 60: _Rural Rides_, ii. 353.]

[Footnote 61: _Commons Committee, Stoppage of Wages_ (_Hosiery, 1854_).
Evidence of Mr. Tremenheere.]

[Footnote 62: _Evidence before the Truck Commissioners_, Q. 33,670.]

[Footnote 63: _Truck Commission, 1871. Report_, p. 16.]

[Footnote 64: _Commons Committee, Stoppage of Wages in the Hosiery
Manufacture_ (1854), Q. 80.]

[Footnote 65: _Commons Committee of_ 1816, pp. 64 and 73.]

[Footnote 66: Ibid., p. 38.]

[Footnote 67: Ibid., p. 28.]

[Footnote 68: Speech, March 29, 1825.]

[Footnote 69: Letter to the Chevalier Bunsen, 1834, quoted in Strachey,
_Eminent Victorians_, p. 197.]

VIII

ATOMIC THEORIES

PROFESSOR W.H. BRAGG, C.B.E., D.SC., F.R.S.

When a lecture on the progress of Science is given before a conference
concerned largely with historical subjects, it is not inappropriate to
point out that Science has a history of its own and that its progress
makes a connected story. The discovery of new facts is not made in an
isolated fashion, nor is it a matter of pure chance, unaffected by what
has gone before. On the contrary, scientific progress is made step by
step, each new point that is reached forming a basis for further
advances. Even the direction of discovery is not entirely in the
explorer's control; there is always a next step to be taken and a
limited number of possible steps forward from which a choice can be
made. The scientific discoverer has to go in the direction in which his
discoveries lead him. When discoveries have been made it is possible to
think of uses to which they may be put, but in the first instance all
discoveries are made without any knowledge whatever of what use may
afterwards be made of them.

Consequently scientific progress is a quite orderly advance, not a
spasmodic collection of facts, and in the truest sense of the word it
has a history. In order that opportunities for this steady progress may
be provided it is very important that this point should be fully
appreciated. Every one, for example, is vaguely conscious that science
played a great p