336 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



The men who have most profoundly influenced the 

 world from the scientific side have habitually sought 

 isolation. Faraday, at a certain period of his career, 

 formally renounced dining out. Darwin lives apart 

 from the bustle of the world in his quiet home in Kent. 

 Mayer and Joule dealt in unobtrusive retirement with 

 the weightiest scientific questions. There is, however, 

 one motive power in the world which no man, be he a 

 scientific student or otherwise, can afford to treat with 

 indifference; and that is, the cultivation of right rela- 

 tions with his fellow-men the performance of his duty, 

 not as an isolated individual, but as a member of society. 

 It is duty in this aspect, overcoming alike the sense of 

 possible danger and the desire for repose, that has placed 

 me in your presence here to-night. 



To look at his picture as a whole, a painter re- 

 quires distance; and to judge of the total scientific 

 achievement of any age, the standpoint of a succeeding 

 age is desirable. We may, however, transport ourselves 

 in idea into the future, and thus survey with more or 

 less completeness the science of our time. We some- 

 times hear it decried, and contrasted to its disadvantage 

 with the science of other times. I do not think that 

 this will be the verdict of posterity. I think, on the 

 contrary, that posterity will acknowledge that in the 

 history of science no higher samples of intellectual con- 

 quest are recorded than those which this age has made 

 its own. One of the most salient of these I propose, 

 with your permission, to make the subject of our con- 

 sideration during the coming hour. 



It is now generally admitted that the man of to-day 

 is the child and product of incalculable antecedent 

 time. His physical and intellectual textures have been 

 woven for him during his passage through phases of 

 history and forms of existence which lead the mind 



