THE SCIENTIFIC WORK OF W. D. GUNNING. 529 



prime object in all Ms lectures was to elevate and enlarge the 

 mental vision. He sought to present the truth as his studies had 

 shown it to him in a manner to awaken the interest of his audience 

 and make them informed upon the subject. He sunk himself in 

 his theme, kept the question of money profit farthest from his 

 thoughts, and was never known to relinquish a course because it 

 did not pay. It would be impracticable to enumerate here the 

 several subjects of these lectures or speak of the places in the 

 East and West where they were delivered. The whole country 

 knew him through them. They were given first chiefly in the East- 

 ern States, then Chicago and the Northwest became the principal 

 field, and in the later years of the author's life the Pacific and 

 Southern States. They were delivered in public halls, before 

 lyceums, in colleges, in the field, in churches, before Young Men's 

 Christian Associations, and were nearly everywhere listened to 

 with absorbed attention, and well received even by those whose 

 views were very different from his, and were commended by the 

 public, by scholars, and by men of science. Sometimes they met 

 with opposition and hostile criticism, as at Brooklyn, N. Y., and 

 at Keene, N. H., where the Young Men's Christian Association 

 took pains to resolve that it would not be held responsible for his 

 views. Darwinism had not yet ceased to be a novelty and a shock 

 to theologians, and there were not wanting men who were ready to 

 use any pretext for attacking him on this ground. He was never 

 at a loss for a sufficient answer to these attacks, and simply relied 

 on facts for the vindication of his position. The accounts given 

 by the hearers of his lectures all speak of wonderful power in 

 them descriptive and persuasive. 



He soon came into demand as a contributor to periodicals, and 

 through the columns of such journals as The Congregationalist, 

 Christian Union, Theodore Tilton's Golden Age, Lippincott's 

 Magazine, etc., his articles reached tens of thousands of readers. 

 While addressing common intelligence he would never trifle with 

 his subject or " make a toy of science," and declined offers for 

 papers on the " science-made-easy " plan. His x^urpose and the 

 thought that animated him were well expressed in the preface 

 to his Life History of our Planet published in Chicago in 1876, 

 Avith illustrations by Mrs. Mary Gunning, in the observation that 

 teaching the facts of a science is not teaching the science ; that 

 " facts do not enlarge the mind unless they are fertilized by prin- 

 ciples," and that he sought to conduct his reader " through method 

 to results." 



Visiting Europe in 1866, after the death of the first Mrs. Gun- 

 ning, he made a pedestrian tour through Yorkshire; was a guest 

 on geological excursions of Sir Thomas Crosley in Halifax ; was 

 entertained by Prof. Robert Harley; lectured at Huddersfield 



VOL. L. 39 



