THE LATE PROFESSOR TYNDALL, 825 



measured, generosity is great in proportion to tlie amount of self- 

 denial entailed ; and where ample means are possessed large gifts 

 often entail no self-denial. Far more self-denial may be involved 

 in the performance, on another's behalf, of some act which re- 

 quires time and labor. In addition to generosity under its ordi- 

 nary form, which Prof. Tyndall displayed in unusual degree, he 

 displayed it under a less common form. He was ready to take 

 much trouble to help friends. I have had personal experience of 

 this. Though he had always in hand some investigation of great 

 interest to him, and though, as I have heard him say, when he 

 had bent his mind to a subject he could not with any facility 

 break off and resume it again, yet, when I have sought his sci- 

 entific aid information or critical opinion I never found the 

 slightest reluctance to give me his undivided attention. Much 

 more markedly, however, was this kind of generosity shown in 

 another direction. Many men, while they are eager for appreci- 

 ation, manifest little or no appreciation of others, and still less go 

 out of their way to express it. With Tyndall it was not thus : he 

 was eager to recognize achievement. Notably in the case of Fara- 

 day, and less notably, though still conspicuously, in many cases, he 

 has bestowed much labor and sacrificed many weeks in setting 

 forth others' merits. It was evidently a pleasure to him to dilate 

 on the claims of fellow- workers. 



But there was a derivative form of this generosity calling for 

 still greater eulogy. He was not content with expressing appre- 

 ciation of those whose merits were recognized, but he spent energy 

 unsparingly in drawing public attention to those whose merits 

 were unrecognized ; and time after time, in championing the 

 causes of such, he was regardless of the antagonisms he aroused 

 and the evils he brought on himself. This chivalrous defense of 

 the neglected and the ill-used has been, I think, by few, if any, so 

 often repeated. I have myself more than once benefited by his 

 determination, quite spontaneously shown, that justice should be 

 done in the apportionment of credit ; and I have with admiration 

 watched like actions of his in other cases cases in which no con- 

 sideration of nationality or of creed interfered in the least with 

 his insistance on equitable distribution of honors. 



In thus undertaking to fight for those who were unfairly dealt 

 with, he displayed in another direction that very conspicuous trait 

 which, as displayed in his Alpine feats, has made him to many 

 persons chiefly known I mean courage, passing very often into 

 daring. And here let me, in closing this sketch, indicate certain 

 mischiefs which this trait brought upon him. Courage grows by 

 success. The demonstrated ability to deal with dangers produces 

 readiness to meet more dangers, and is self-justifying where the 

 muscular power and the nerve habitually prove adequate. But the 



