176 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 



Illustrations abound on every hand, but the subject of our discussion 

 here is apropos. The Herschels, father and son, Tyndall, Bunsen, 

 Kirchoff, Wien, Planck, Bohr, and, preceding these, Newton, form 

 a succession no one of whom overthrew the work of his predecessors. 

 Instead, before each one saw a little deeper into the pure spring of 

 truth, he first established himself on the foundation already laid 

 for his use. Einstein does not overthrow Newton; he adds to 

 Newton's truth. 

 Listen to Alfred Noyes, writing of Newton : 



" If I saw farther, 'twas because I stood 



On Giant shoulders," wrote the king of thought, 



Too proud of his great line to slight the toils 



Of his forebears. He turned to their dim past. 



Their fading victories and their fond defeats, 



And knelt as at an altar, drawing all 



Their strengths into his own ; and so went forth 



With all their glory shining in his face, 



To win new victories for the age to come. 



So, where Copernicus had destroyed the dream 

 We called our world ; where Galileo watched 

 Those ancient firmaments melt, a thin blue smoke 

 Into a vaster night ; where Kepler heard 



Only stray fragments, isolated chords 

 Of that tremendous music wliich slioiild bind 

 All things anew in one, Newton arose 

 And carried on their fire. 



* * * he oauglit 

 The sunbeam striking through that bullet-hole 

 In his closed shuttei'- — a round white spot of light 

 Upon a small dark screen. He interposed 

 A prism of glass. He saw the sunbeam break 

 And spread upon the screen its rainbow band 

 Of disentangled colours, till in scale 

 Like notes in music ; first the violet ray, 

 Then indigo, trembling softly into blue. 

 Then green and yellow, ciuiveriiig side by side; 

 Then orange, mellowing richly into red. 



Here Newton stopped; and here Herschel began the long- 

 continued, still progressing, siglitless but not unseeing search. 

 Beyond the lied in the Spectrum. 



