Memorials of the lineage, early life, education and development of the genius of James Watt

JAMES WATT. 209
improvement it has received, and every important alteration in its
construction which has been made, having been equally the con-
sequence of philosophical study and design. 1
Considerations of this nature may tend to place in their legitimate
light the real motives of our great townsman in establishing the philo-
sophical and scientific library of Greenock, and ought to enhance in
our estimation the value of the gift. In another chapter, which it is
proposed to devote to a sketch of the rise and progress of Steam
Navigation and the art of Naval Architecture in the Clyde, it will be
seen how important a contribution to the science and even wealth of
the community such an institution was capable of being made. Mean-
time, let it suffice to draw attention to the additional view which the
motives just illustrated afford, of the wisdom, the true magnanimity
of this illustrious person, whose spirit and character, whether as a
philosopher, or as a citizen and a man, cannot but gain in the estima-
tion of posterity from every fresh examination of his principles or his
private worth.
1 Robison's System of Mechanical Philosophy, 1822, vol. ii. p. 46.
27