LECTURE I
Introduction—
The object of the courses of Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution is to interest the young in the principles and the progress of science. This has been many times successfully accomplished by describing in simple language and, if possible, by demonstrating, the laws that govern a well-known phenomenon, such as the burning of a candle or the formation of a soap-bubble. The study of these familiar things is the door by which we may enter into the domain of natural philosophy. As described by Faraday, a candle-flame became a centre around which we found clustered the fundamental facts and principles of chemical, and even of physical science; and the consideration of a soap-bubble (as in the lectures in this place by Professor Dewar two
