768 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



challenged. If he could himself at the end of his long career describe 

 his own efforts as " failure," it was because of the immensely high 

 ideal ° which he set before him. '' I know," he said on the day of 

 his jubilee, " no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the rela- 

 tion between ether, electricity, and ponderable matter, or of chemical 

 affinity, than I knew and tried to teach to my students in my first 

 session." Yet which of us has not learned much of these things 

 because of his work ? We of this Institution of Electrical Engineers 

 may well be proud of him — proud that he was one of our first mem- 

 bers, that he was thrice our president, and that as our president he 

 died. We shall not look upon his like again. 



"• He conceived the possibility of formulating a comprehensive molecular 

 theory, definite and complete, " in which all physical science will be represented 

 with every property of matter shown in dynamical relation to the whole." 

 Presidential Address to the British Association, 1871, reprinted in Popular 

 Lectures and Addresses, Vol. II, p. 163. 



