662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as linking together science and art. He accordingly had great pleas- 

 ure in submitting for acceptance " Literature and Art," coupling with 

 it the name of Lord Lytton, who was not only a distinguished repre- 

 sentative of modern literature, but had also a distinct hereditary claim 

 to represent that of the last generation ; and Sir Frederick Leighton, 

 the distinguished President of the Royal Academy. 



The Earl of Lytton. In returning thanks for " Literature " upon 

 an occasion when we are all met to honor science in the person of one 

 of its most illustrious adepts, I can not but forcibly remember that we 

 are living in an age when inquiry is more active and more wide-spread 

 than conviction, and it is natural that in minds of the highest order 

 under these conditions even the imaginative faculty should be more 

 powerfully attracted to scientific research than to purely literary produc- 

 tion. But inquiry, I think, would be very sterile if conviction in some 

 form or another were not the ultimate fruit of it, and I think that for 

 a period of really vigorous, creative, imaginative art, we must look 

 forward, in the course of scientific research, to some such general re- 

 settlement of ideas upon the basis of a common conviction which is 

 not now, perhaps, altogether attainable as may enable art, instead of 

 representing, as it does now, merely the mental attitude of the indi- 

 vidual poet or the individual painter, once more to become the uni- 

 versally spontaneous and universally recognized imaginative expres- 

 sion of ideas and emotions which are common to a whole generation 

 or a whole community. If that is the case, if science is ultimately to 

 render this great service to literature and art, surely, in the mean 

 while, we can not but gratefully appreciate the literary labors of those 

 men of science who, in our own and in other countries, are promoting, 

 or have promoted, this result, not only as original discoverers, but also 

 as popular and powerful interpreters of scientific fact, and who, in this 

 latter capacity, have already enriched contemporary literature with 

 writings of rare literary value. If, instead of returning thanks for 

 literature, I were permitted to return thanks on behalf of literature to 

 those writers who have powerfully influenced my own generation, not 

 only by thoughts which stimulate and instruct the intellect, but also 

 by words which stir and elevate the heart, then assuredly I should ask 

 leave to mention some distinguished names which occupy in the field 

 of literature a position only second to the high rank they hold in the 

 hierarchy of science ; and foremost among those names I should not 

 hesitate to mention with a special personal gratitude the name of the 

 illustrious man who is the honored guest of this great assembly to- 

 night. I can not say it is as a student of science that I myself have 

 studied the writings of Professor Tyndall, but this I can say, and most 

 truly, that those writings have been to me, from a very early period 

 of my life, companions so cherished that I learned to look upon their 

 writer as a dear personal friend and benefactor long before it was my 



