20 



DISCOVERY 



CH. 



make such telescopes and see such things that is, I will 

 endeavour to do so." 



The less a man knows, the more content he is with his 

 intellectual capacity and outlook : it requires a great 

 man to realise the imperfections of his knowledge. At 

 the jubilee of Lord Kelvin, celebrated at the University 

 of Glasgow in 1896, representatives of " light and lead- 

 ing " from all parts of the world assembled to do honour 

 to him. In science and in invention his work belongs 

 to the front rank of results of human thought and 

 ingenuity. Yet what did Lord Kelvin say in reply to 

 the congratulations expressed upon his service in the 

 cause of scientific progress ? 



" One word characterises the most strenuous of the efforts for 

 the advancement of science that I have made perseveringly 

 during fifty-five years ; that word," he said, " is failure. I know 

 no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between 

 ether, electricity and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, 

 than I knew and tried to teach to my students of natural philo- 

 sophy fifty years ago in my first session as Professor. ' ' Kelvin. 



Far more than anyone else in his day and generation, 

 Lord Kelvin contributed to the advancement of science 

 and the application of natural knowledge to the use of 

 mankind ; yet in his mind the predominant idea was 

 not satisfaction at success but disappointment at the 

 failure of his persevering efforts during fifty years to 

 understand the omnipresent ether of the physicist and 

 the manner in which it is concerned in electric and mag- 

 netic forces. The achievement of ocean telegraphy, 

 the improvement of the compass and sounding-line, the 

 hundreds of papers on properties of matter, provide 

 sufficient justification for a score of scientific careers, 

 but to Lord Kelvin they seemed insignificant in com- 

 parison with the unsolved problem of the theory of matter 



