457.  But perhaps the greatest benefit which will accrue from these assemblies, is the intercourse which they cannot fail to promote between the different classes of society.  The man of science will derive practical information from the great manufacturers the chemist will be indebted to the same source for substances which exist in such minute quantity, as only to become visible in most extensive operations—­and persons of wealth and property, resident in each neighbourhood visited by these migratory assemblies, will derive greater advantages than either of those classes, from the real instruction they may procure respecting the produce and manufactures of their country, and the enlightened gratification which is ever attendant on the acquisition of knowledge.(4*)

458.  Thus it may be hoped that public opinion shall be brought to bear upon the world of science; and that by this intercourse light will be thrown upon the characters of men, and the pretender and the charlatan be driven into merited obscurity.  Without the action of public opinion, any administration, however anxious to countenance the pursuits of science, and however ready toreward, by wealth or honours, those whom they might think most eminent, would run the risk of acting like the blind man recently couched, who, having no mode of estimating degrees of distance, mistook the nearest and most insignificant for the largest objects in nature:  it becomes, therefore, doubly important, that the man of science should mix with the world.

459.  It is highly probable that in the next generation, the race of scientific men in England will spring from a class of persons altogether different from that which has hitherto scantily supplied them.  Requiring, for the success of their pursuits, previous education, leisure, and fortune, few are so likely to unite these essentials as the sons of our wealthy manufacturers, who, having been enriched by their own exertions, in a field connected with science, will be ambitious of having their children distinguished in its ranks.  It must, however, be admitted, that this desire in the parents would acquire great additional intensity, if worldly honours occasionally followed successful efforts; and that the country would thus gain for science, talents which are frequently rendered useless by the unsuitable situations in which they are placed.

460.  The discoverers of iodine and bromine, two substances hitherto undecompounded, were both amongst the class of manufacturers, one being a maker of saltpetre at Paris, the other a manufacturing chemist at Marseilles; and the inventor of balloons filled with rarefied air, was a paper manufacturer near Lyons.  The descendants of Mongolfier, the first aerial traveller, still carry onthe establishment of their progenitor, and combine great scientific knowledge with skill in various departments of the arts, to which the different branches of the family have applied themselves.