A. B. Macallum 77 



The unfinished window in Aladdin's Tower 

 Unfinished must remain. 



The second point is that Scientific Truth of any age is that 

 which works and consequently it may change and present a new 

 aspect with each succeeding generation. 



The third is that the Scientific Spirit is, when rigorously exer- 

 cised, the only test of what works or what is Scientific Truth. 



The last point is that Science is not and never can be infalhble, 

 and we should be thankful for that, for, if it assumed infalHbihty, 

 the progress of the human mind on the path of Truth would cease. 



Before I conclude finally I would call attention to a rendition of 



the ideal Scientific Spirit which is to be found in a passage of 



Tennyson's "Ulysses." The old hero is there represented as hav- 



ing, after ten long years before the walls of Troy and ten more years 



of peril and adventure on the sea, returned to Ithaca, his old home, 



and as now resolving to take up the life of change and discovery 



even though the gulfs should wash him down. The passage which I 



quote should be indelibly fixed in the memory of every scientific 



worker : 



I am a part of all that I have met ; 



Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 



Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 



Forever and forever when I move. 



How dull it were to pause, to make an end, 



To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 



As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life 



Were all too little, and of one to me 



Little remains, but every hour is saved 



From that eternal silence, something more, 



A bringer of new things, and vile it were 



For some three suns to störe and hoard myself, 



And this gray spirit yearning in desire 



To follow knowledge, like a sinking Star, 



Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 



University of Toronto, 

 Toronto, Canada. 



