"The laws which determine the prosperity of nations are not the work of LONDON: PRINTED FOR CHARLES TAIT, 63, FLEET STREET; EDINBURGH. 1827. TO GEORGE BIRKBECK, ESQ. M. D., F. C. S., M. A.S. President of the London Mechanics Institution, of the Meteorological and Chemical Societies, and of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London; Honorary Member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Bristol, &c. &c. MY DEAR SIR, IN requesting you to accept the dedication of this little work I am actuated by no mean ambition. I wish to bear in this public manner my humble but sincere testimony to the great importance of your services in promoting the advancement of sound knowledge, and to the generous zeal which leads you to devote much of your time, and I am afraid, to sacrifice your health, to the accomplishment of this great object; and I wish at the same time, thus publicly to express the pride I feel at being numbered among your acquaintance and fellow-labourers in this field of true honour. From the beginning of the London Me chanics' Institution, which it is, I believe, our common pride to have originated and supported, though with very unequal powers and unequal efficacy, I have witnessed the unwearied diligence, the never sparing exertions, with which you have laboured through good and through evil report, sometimes publicly misrepresented, but always esteemed and honoured by those who knew you best, to enlighten and improve its members. I have frequently heard with delight the choicest truths of science explained by you in the happiest language and most engaging manner, and I have marked with deep interest how the taste of your audience has been gradually refined by your example, while their understandings have been enlarged by your acquirements. The Members of the Institution are already indebted to you for numberless lectures on some of the most interesting branches of experimental science, always recommended by beautiful illustrations, and always made the means of enforcing some moral truths. Never wearied with well doing, after having |