1890.] **«* [Lesley. 



reputation, capped at last by fame. For he became famous. He became 

 known and respected more widely in the United States and other coun- 

 tries than commonly happens to a man who dies in his thirty-sixth year. 

 Yes, young and famous, worthily so. 



Now, what a wonderful, what a mysterious thing it is, that while mil- 

 lions of old men are annually exhaled from the surface of this planet 

 whom nobody a few miles from their temporary resting places ever 

 heard of, and who are no more noticed when they pass away than so 

 many drops of dew disappearing from a field of grass, it should happen 

 that now and then when a young man dies hundreds of eyes are moist 

 with tears and thousands of people express the most sensible and selfish 

 regret. Usefulness is the only explanation of the phenomenon. 



This is the American Philosophical Society for the Diffusion of Useful 

 Knowledge. To that title it was born ; with that title, it still lives and 

 works. It is not a club. It is not a monastery. It is not a museum of 

 curiosities in human form. It is not a theatre on which the vulgar, selfish 

 passions of the heart can display themselves — vanity, pride, self-interest, 

 dressed in their motley of untruths and antipathies. Its ration d'etre was 

 public usefulness ; its only claim to permanence is continual usefulness. 

 Genius is a valid claim to its membership, but only on condition of being 

 useful to the world, and doing wrong to no man. Knowledge is a claim 

 to its membership, but only on the conditions of modesty, kindness and 

 usefulness. We philosophers of Philadelphia belong by name at least 

 to a utilitarian school of philosophy. Our motto is pro bono publico. 

 Every member of this Society should adopt as the leading principles 

 of his knowledge, non sibi sed toti. In Syria, the chief ceremonial was 

 the anniversary celebration of the death of Adonis ; this Society should 

 have an annual celebration of the death of the personal selfishness of 

 each and all of its members. Self-sacrifice is a sine qua non for useful- 

 ness. 



Therefore, thinking thus, much as I esteemed Ashburner for his per- 

 sonal, manly and Christian virtues, I admired him most of all for his use- 

 fulness, his perpetual and varied usefulness, in so many ways, to so large 

 a number of persons. His restless energy was useful to the old and the 

 sluggish ; his masterful will was useful to the young, the reckless and the 

 insubordinate. His accurate methods of investigation, his patient, exhaus- 

 tive observation of facts, his indefatigable coordination and discussion of 

 them to avoid false generalizations, his dogged perseverance in every 

 attempt to devise the very best apparatus and arrange the very best 

 method for the useful publication of the knowledge he thus won — these 

 made him not only a master of subjects in his branch of science, but a 

 master of less able men, whom he thereby helped largely to educate. 

 But he took special delight and exhibited his greatest skill in "diffusing 

 useful knowledge" — a genuine child of Franklin — a worthy member of 

 this Society. In season and out of season he kept on diffusing useful 

 knowledge, knowing the best ways of doing it. He had not a spark of 



