HENRI POINCAEEl: HIS SCIENTIFIC WORK; HIS 

 PHILOSPHY.i 



By Charles Nordmann. 



With the sudden death of Henri Poincare a great sadness came 

 to aU lovers of idealism and of science. Among all classes it was 

 felt that a great light had been extinguished in the firmament of 

 thought. But that feehng was nowhere so poignant or so lasting as 

 among those who, in their silent arsenals, slowly forge their weapons 

 for the stiaiggle against the unknown, in the workshop of the physi- 

 cist, beneath the dome of the astronomer, or in the bare room which 

 the philosopher so richly furnishes with his meditations. 



Plenri Poincare was not only the uncontested master of natural 

 pliilosopy, the intellectual beacon whose penetrating rays could 

 pierce all the regions of science. It was not for such quahties alone 

 that we admire him, for he had also those characteristics which made 

 us love him. That is why for a century he, more than an}^ other 

 pliilosopher, has had "that personal influence which he alone can 

 exercise whose heart has not ceded to his brain." - 



And now, when death takes from us this master whose task is 

 done, it is the man alone for whom we mourn. In the work which 

 he left was the best part of himself. When a man passes from us 

 while yet young, yet fuU of creative activity, of mental vigor, of 

 moral force, the weight of whose authority was constantly renewed, 

 then our regrets are beyond bounds. In our sadness we are angry at 

 fate, for what we lose is the unknown, the hopes without hmit, the 

 discoveries of to-morrow which those of yesterday promised. 



Other nations regret the loss of Henri Poincare no less than we. 

 He was received with unbounded admii-ation in Germany where, 

 on the invitation from their universities, he several times lectured 

 so briUiantly on his work. Such intellectual crusades were among 

 his greatest joys, for he felt that he was not only carrying conviction 

 but friendship as weU. Philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, 

 all spoke of him as the greatest authority of our time ("Die erste 



I Translated by permission from Revue des Deux Mondes, Paris, Sept. 15, 1912, pp. 331-368. 

 - All the phrases included within quotation marks were expressed by Henri Poincar6 himself unless 

 otherwise stated. 



85360°— SM 1912 48 741 



