456 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lowing fashion in the " Life and Letters of Principal Forbes ? " 

 After having referred to the Dilatation and Gravitation Theories, and 

 to an observation of Playfair's, the writer proceeds : " We are not 

 aware that any thing of j)articular importance beyond this was known, 

 in the sense of having been observed^ not merely seen^ till Forbes took 

 up the subject, with the exception of liendu's acute remark, which ap- 

 pears to have been previously made by Captain Basil Hall and others, 

 that a glacier seems to flow in its channel like a sluggish stream." 

 This is as inadequate as it is unjust ; and I would also, once for all, 

 respectfully protest against the following language as describing with 

 even approximate fairness the relation of Rendu to this question : 

 " One of the few men who seems in any point of consequence to have had 

 even one clear and accurate idea on the subject before Forbes is Mgr. 

 Rendu, late Bishop of Annecy, but this was so mixed up with error 

 that it does not appear likely that in his hands it could have ever led 

 to any thing definite ; for Rendu holds and enunciates, sometimes in 

 the same sentence, facts and errors utterly incompatible with them." ^ 

 This is the spirit of depreciation which has introduced bitterness into 

 these discussions, and which will not be shared by any just or gener- 

 ous mind. 



Prof. Tait has prepared himself for his portion of the book here 

 under review by some researches which prove that a " grudge on my 

 part against Prof. Forbes was in full bud as early as 1854." He 

 moreover credits me with " extremely great skill in choosing precisely 

 such forms of language as were calculated to produce the most exqui- 

 site torture in the mind of a scrupulously upright and high-souled 

 man." That I should exhibit skill in any thing is to me astonishing. 

 What he here says, coupled with what he had said before regarding 

 my ignorance, is a mere feeble copy of his description of Mr. Lowe — 

 a man " compounded in about equal proportions of fiend and fool ; " 

 and such repetition is unworthy of the versatile genius of Prof. Tait. 

 Speaking seriously, we have, in both cases, the mere wilclness of un- 

 controlled anger. I had no more grudge against Prof. Forbes in 1854 

 than against Prof. Faraday, and friendly letters passed between Forbes 

 and myself long subsequent to this date. In fact, if I had any grudge, 

 it was rather against Agassiz than against Forbes, for in those days I 

 was impatient with Agassiz's physics, but otherwise ill acquainted w^th 

 the merits of the case between them. Might I commend to my critic 

 the following deliverance of his distinguished countryman Prof. 

 Bain ? " Our emotions of anger ^ like fear, are manifestations super- 

 induced upon mere pain. Revenge, antipathy, hatred, party spirit, 

 are so many forms of the irascible feeling, and are antagonistic in a 

 conspicuous degree to the ascertaining of truth. Calumny, the ex- 

 pression of anger, connotes falsehood." 



I willingly accept Prof. Tait's grammatical correction as regards 

 » Prof. Tait in " Life and Letters of Forbes," pp. 494, 498. 



