46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



the contestants have appealed triumphantly to the results of synthetic 

 chemistry, as indicating clearly that the " arcana of life had been en- 

 tered and the mysterious divinity, vital force, overthrown." Does it 

 not rather appear that cliemistry, as yet, had not cut the Gordian 

 knot, but was rather compelled to look to other sets of forces than 

 those known as chemical for the chief agjencies concerned in this work ? 



UNIYEKSITIES : ACTUAL AKD IDEAL/ 



By Professor T. H. HUXLEY, LL. D., F. R. S. 



ELECTED, by the suffrages of your four nations, rector of the 

 ancient university of which you are scholars, I take the earliest 

 opportunity which has presented itself, since my restoration to health, 

 of delivering the address which, by long custom, is expected of the 

 holder of my office. 



My first duty, in opening that address, is to offer you my most 

 hearty thanks for the signal honor you have conferred upon me — an 

 honor of which, as a man unconnected with you by personal or by 

 national ties, devoid of political distinction, and a plebeian who 

 stands by his order, I could not have dreamed. And it was the more 

 surprising to me, as the five-and-twenty years which have passed over 

 my head since I reached intellectual manhood have been largely spent 

 in no half-hearted advocacy of doctrines which have not yet found 

 favor in the eyes of academic respectability — so that, when the pro. 

 posal to nominate me for your rector came, I was almost as much 

 astonished as was Hal o' the Wynd, " who fought for his own hand," 

 by the Black Douglas's proffer of knighthood. And I fear that my 

 acceptance must be taken as evidence that, less wise than the Armorer 

 of Perth, I have not yet done with soldiering. 



In fact, if, for a moment, I imagined that your intention was simply, 

 in the kindness of your hearts, to do me honor, and that the rector 

 of your university, like that of some other universities, was one of 

 those happy beings who sit in glory for three years, with nothing to 

 do for it save the making of a speech, a conversation with my dis- 

 tinguished predecessor soon dispelled the dream. I found that, by 

 the constitution of the University of Aberdeen, the incumbent of the 

 rectorate is, if not a power, at any rate a potential energy ; and that, 

 whatever may be his chances of success or failure, it is his duty to 

 convert that potential energy into a living force, directed toward such 

 ends as may seem to him conducive to the welfare of the corporation 

 of which he is the theoretical head. 



^ The Inaugural Address of the Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen, Febru- 

 ary 27, 1874. 



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