HENKI POINCARE NORDMANN. 745 



M. Sageret wliicli shows well the disdain with whicli he neglected 

 what was not science for science, or, if I may dare to use a new 

 plirase. Science for Art. The director of the ficole sup^riore des 

 telegraphes had asked liim to discuss in a lecture a somewhat diffi- 

 cult problem relative to the propagation of electric currents in cables. 

 Poincare accepted and solved the problem "at first sight" without 

 having had the time to discuss it. Congratulations came from the 

 director. "Yes," replied Poincare, "I have found the value of L, 

 but is it measured in Idlograms or kilom^eters ? " It is useless to add 

 that he knew very well what he was talking about. 



We should also recall his brilUant school days, his wonderful 

 faculty for assimilation; he followed all the mathematical courses of 

 the Ecole polytechnique without taking a single note, not because 

 he remembered the demonstrations but because he could reason 

 them out at will. We should recall that he was very skilled in rea- 

 soning, but what does that prove? The greater portion of the 

 teachers of mathematics have left no trace of themselves in the 

 world. For it is one thing to assimilate, another to invent, and we 

 know of scientists of renown who have not succeeded in making 

 themselves accepted as fellows in our colleges. 



To be complete we should conclude by spealdng of his career, his 

 rise to the very highest rank, to the greatest honors given by society. 

 But that matters Mttle. There is no common measure between 

 Poincare and the many other men whose ranks and titles in this 

 social ant liill arc equal to his and of whom some one — I have forgotten 

 who — said, "their conceit ill concealed their incompetence." Poin- 

 care, on the contrary, never attached much weight to such honors. 

 He was deeply and sincerely modest, hesitating always to announce 

 defuiite conclusions and his intellectual attitude was constantly one 

 of doubt. It is perhaps for that reason that among a dozen great 

 scientists who have lived during tlxe last century, he accompUshed 

 the mu'acle of never having made a single enemy, a single one liostile 

 to him in science. 



In his scientific work, Poincare touched aU the great mathematical 

 questions. He did not merely touch them as, from the multiplicity 

 of problems examined, one might suppose — just skimming over them. 

 This Michelangelo of thought could not, would not, stop at the httle 

 details — for the small harvests to be reaped from the beaten paths. 

 It was in the most obscure corners, the most inaccessible of matter, 

 that he knew how by first onslaught, Avith great cuts with his chisel, 

 to open paths full of light and unknown flowers. 



Mathematician above all and before all, he could clear fields for 

 himself in those studies which transcend reality and where the pure 

 geometrician, lost completely among his harmonious abstractions 

 and puie deductions, constructs at his will, immaterial, impeccable 



