REPORT ON THE HENRY STATUE XXXV 



ability. And yet there Is abundant evidence from bis writings, both 

 early and late, that he was in no sense behind the times or ignorant of 

 the fascinating plausibilities of the-newest and the most fantastic of 

 theories. While he was almost the earliest in the field to formulate and 

 defend the doctrine of the correlation of force and to concede that it may 

 be applied to all the processes that are properly physiological, he was 

 equally sharp and positive in the assertion that the mental agencies of 

 every kind cannot be the correlate of any physical or biological agency. 

 He insisted with equal positiveness that the so-called vital force cannot 

 be the product of any mechanical or chemical activity, siugle or in com- 

 bination, 1 ut must lie a directive and constructive agent of itself. Later 

 in life he recognized the manifold indications of the presence of a law 

 of progressive variation in the history of animal and vegetable life, and 

 so far accepted evolution as a working hypothesis. But had he been 

 asked at any time whether evolution as a force or evolution as a law, 

 one or both, apart or together, could explain the origin of life and of 

 living men, of intellect and will and the capacity for science and faith 

 in science, I think he would have regarded the question somewhat as 

 though he had been asked whether he believed in the vortices of Des- 

 cartes or in Kepler's directing angels. Had this doctrine been defended 

 in a scientific association, either in the soaring gyrations of winger! 

 speech or the dry assertions of dogmatic positiveness, I am confident 

 he would have remanded its champions at once to the blackboard, and 

 have begged them first to explain whether evolution w ( re an agent, a 

 force, or a law, and then desired them to identify it if it were an agent, 

 to define it if it were a force, or to formulate it if it were a law. 

 Large as was the sphere which he assigned to the imagination, and 

 important as the role which he allowed to hypotheses, he would bring 

 every theory, however brilliant and plausible, to the triple test of co- 

 herence, sufficiency, and experiment. 



Forward and hopeful as he had been all his life long to follow the 

 fruitful suggestions of analogy, he never would allow this winged steed 

 to cross the chasms of scientific theory with any flying leaps, without 

 insisting that it should first fold and pack its pinions, and then carefully 

 retrace its steps along that hard pathway of fact and law which alone 

 can carry us safely from a scientific hypothesis to a scientific truth. 

 The science of America owes somewhat to his example and authority in 

 this regard, that its brilliant promises and solid achievements have 

 been so far kept free from the speculative audacities and the physio- 

 logical cosmogonies from which the science of England and Germany 

 has not been wholly exempt. 



This, be it observed, was his position within the domains of pure 

 science. For the region beyond, whether it is called the domain of 

 philosophy or the domain of faith, let it suffice to say that he had too 

 positive a respect lor his own mind to doubt for an instant that this intel- 

 lect was the reflex of that supreme intellect which sustains and controls 



