THE BELFAST ADDRESS. 201 



incomplete, it is only by wise combination of the parts 

 required, with those already irrevocably built, that 

 we can hope for completeness. There is no necessary 

 incongruity between what has been accomplished and 

 what remains to be done. The moral glow of Socrates, 

 which we all feel by ignition, has in it nothing incom- 

 patible with the physics of Anaxagoras which he so 

 much scorned, but which he would hardly scorn to-day. 

 And here I am reminded of one among us, hoary, but 

 still strong, whose prophet-voice some thirty years ago, 

 far more than any other of this age, unlocked whatever 

 of life and nobleness lay latent in its most gifted minds 

 one fit to stand beside Socrates or the Maccabean 

 Eleazar, and to dare and suffer all that they suffered 

 and dared fit, as he once said of Fichte, ' to have 

 been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of 

 Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe.' With 

 a capacity to grasp physical principles which his friend 

 Goethe did not possess, and which even total lack of 

 exercise has not been able to reduce to atrophy, it is 

 the world's loss that he, in the vigour of his years, did 

 not open his mind and sympathies to science, and 

 make its conclusions a portion of his message to man- 

 kind. Marvellously endowed as he was equally 

 equipped on the side of the Heart and of the Under- 

 standing he might have done much towards teaching 

 us how to reconcile the claims of both, and to enable 

 them in coming times to dwell together, in unity of 

 spirit and in the bond of peace. 



And now the end is come. With more time, or 

 greater strength and knowledge, what has been here said 

 might have been better said, while worthy matters, here 

 omitted, might have received fit expression. But there 

 would have been no material deviation from the views 



