PROFESSOR TYNDALUS ADDRESS, 685 



moral force to whip it into action, the achievements of the intellect 

 would be poor indeed. 



It has been said that science divorces itself from literature. The 

 statement, like so many others, arises from lack of knowledo-e. A 

 glance at the less technical writings of its leaders — of its Helmholtz, 

 its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Reymond — would show what breadth of 

 literary culture they command. Where among modern writers can 

 you find their superiors in clearness and vigor of literary style? 

 Science desires no isolation, but freely combines with every effort 

 toward the bettering of man's estate. Single-handed, and supported 

 not by outward sympathy, but by inward force, it has built at least 

 one great wing of the many-mansioned home which man in his totality 

 demands. And if rough walls and protruding rafter-ends indicate that 

 on one side the edifice is still incomplete, it is only by wise combina- 

 tion of the parts required with those already irrevocably built that 

 we can hope for completeness. There is no necessary incongruity 

 between what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. 

 The moral glow of Socrates, which we all feel by ignition, has in it 

 nothing incompatible with the physics of Anaxagoras which he so 

 much scorned, but which he would hardly scorn to-day. And here I 

 am reminded of one among us, hoary, but still strong, whose prophet- 

 voice some thirty years ago, far more than any other of this age, un- 

 locked whatever of life and nobleness lay latent in its most gifted 

 minds — one fit to stand beside Socrates or the Maccabean Eleazar, and 

 to dare and suffer all that they suffered and dared — fit, as he once said 

 of Fichte, "to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have dis- 

 coursed of beauty and virtue in the groves of Academe." With a 

 capacity to grasp physical principles, which his friend Goethe did not 

 possess, and which even total lack of exercise has not been able to 

 reduce to atrophy, it is the world's loss that he, in the vigor of his 

 years, did not open his mind and sympathies to science, and make its 

 conclusions a portion of his message to mankind. Marvelously en- 

 dowed as he was — equally equipped on the side of the heart and of 

 the understanding — he might have done much toward teaching us 

 how to reconcile the claims of both, and to enable them in comingr 

 times to dwell together in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace. 



And now the end is come. With more time, or greater strength 

 and knowledge, what has been here said might have been better said, 

 while worthy matters here omitted might have received fit expression. 

 But there would have been no material deviation from the views set 

 forth. As regards myself, they are not the growth of a day ; and as 

 regards you, I thought you ought to know the environment which, 

 with or without your consent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in rela- 

 tion to which some adjustment on your part may be necessary. A 

 hint of Hamlet's, however, teaches us all how the troubles of common 

 life may be ended ; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to pur- 



