July 7, 1887] 



NATURE 



223 



during my long tenure of office as one of the Secretaries 

 of the Royal Society ; and for my own part I may say 

 that it seemed to me all along that the results were 

 established on so firm a basis, and the conclusions regard- 

 ing the invisible radiations were so perfectly analogous to 

 what we know to be true regarding the visible ones, 

 where the investigation is comparatively easy, that the 

 work bore on it the stamp of truth. The conclusions 

 were not, however, accepted without opposition. In the 

 late Prof. Magnus Dr. Tyndall met a foeman worthy of 

 his steel ; a foeman, however, only in the sense of an 

 intellectual athlete ; for socially I doubt not they were 

 the firmest friends, and their friendship was even 

 cemented by the fact that they were both alike seeking 

 after truth in a similar subject. But truth only gains by 

 opposition : its defenders are led to engage in fresh re- 

 searches, which end in strengthening its foundations. I 

 think that the validity of l3r. Tyndall's results is now 

 generally admitted. If some hesitation is still felt, it 

 arises mainly, I think, from misconception ; from imagin- 

 ing that assertions which were meant to apply only to 

 heat-rays of such refrangibilities as to be absorbed by 

 water were meant to be affirmed of the invisible radia- 

 tions generally which lie beyond the extreme red. The 

 time reminds me that I must only very briefly refer to 

 another investigation in which Dr. Tyndall has more re- 

 cently been engaged, and of which the interest is biological 

 while the means of investigation are physical ; I allude, 

 of course, to the question of abiogenesis. Here, again, 

 Dr. Tyndall was working on contested ground, and the 

 objections of opponents stimulated him to fresh inquiries, 

 which resulted in the continual strengthening of his 

 negative conclusions. In the course of his work he was 

 led, for instance, to the discovery of the great difference 

 which exists between the germs of microscopic creatures 

 and the creatures themselves, in relation to their power 

 •of resisting the destructive influence of a high tempera- 

 ture. This discovery not only detected a source of error 

 in some experiments which had seemed to favour the 

 hypothesis of abiogenesis, but threw important light on 

 the conditions which must be fulfilled in order to secure 

 complete sterility. But original research is not the only 

 way in which a man can advance the cause of science. 

 All-important though it is, it nevertheless often happens 

 that an original investigation is too abstruse to be 

 followed by more than a {^\n experts ; nor is it by 

 any means necessarily the case that an eminent in- 

 vestigator is equally successful in expounding to others, 

 especially to a mixed audience, the results at which he 

 himself or other investigators may have arrived. The 

 general diffusion of science depends largely on the clear- 

 ness with which its leading principles and results are 

 expounded, whether by lectures or by treatises, in which, 

 while they are scientifically sound, popularity of style and 

 general readableness are not sacrificed to the dry exact- 

 ness of scientific detail. Most of us have had opportuni- 

 ties, whether at the Royal Institution, with which the 

 name of Tyndall has so long been connected, or else- 

 where, of being impressed with the singularly lucid style 

 and graphic expression with which he expounded to his 

 audience the salient points of the scientific subject which 

 he brought before them. Nor was it only in clearness of 

 verbal exposition that he excelled ; the manipulative skill 

 with which his original investigations were carried on 

 served him in good stead in his more popular expositions ; 

 and by the aid of that " domestic sun," which even the 

 murky atmosphere of a London winter could not obscure, 

 he was enabled in very many cases to exhibit to the audi- 

 ence the actual results of experiments which had first 

 been carried out in the quiet of the laboratory. Nor is it 

 our own countrymen alone who have had the benefit of 

 Dr. Tyndall's lucidity of exposition.' Our friends across 

 the ocean have flocked to hear and have appreciated the 

 lectures which he has there delivered as a free gift to 



Transatlantic science. But oral lectures, after all — the 

 lectures at least of one individual— can only reach a frac- 

 tion of the community ; nor do they admit of that pause 

 for thought which the learner requires in endeavouring to 

 make himself master of a new subject. But the same 

 qualities of mind which enable a man to be a clear and 

 interesting lecturer fit him also to be the author of 

 eminently readable books ; and for the general diffusion 

 of science which is taking place we owe much to the 

 writings of Dr. Tyndall. My lords and gentlemen, I fear 

 that I have trespassed too long upon your time, and I will 

 therefore now conclude by asking you once more to drink 

 to the health of Dr. Tyndall. (The toast was drunk with 

 great enthusiasm, the company rising.) 



Professor Tyndall, on rising to respond, was re- 

 ceived with loud cheers, the company rising. He said : 

 — Mr. President, my Lords, and Gentlemen, — When 

 the project of a dinner was first mentioned to me 

 by a very old and steadfast friend of mine, who, 

 to my regret and his, is not here to-night, had 

 any dream, or vision, of the assembly now before me 

 risen on my mind's eye, I should have declined the risk 

 of standing in my present position ; for I should have 

 doubted, as I still continue to doubt, my ability to rise to 

 the level of the occasion. Gratitude, howev-er, is possible 

 to all men ; and I would offer you, Sir, my grateful thanks 

 for the manner in which you have proposed this toast ; I 

 would thank with equal warmth an assembly which, in 

 intellectual measure, is, probably, as distinguished as any 

 of the same size ever addressed by man, for the way in 

 which they have received it ; and I would extend my 

 thanks to my friends of the Department of Science and 

 Art, for iheir spontaneous kindness to an old colleague, 

 who for many years lent his humble aid to the Depart- 

 ment in diffusing sound scientific knowledge among the 

 masses of the people. My own scientific education began 

 late. It had, of necessity, to be postponed until after I 

 had reached the age of seven or eight and twenty. Not- 

 withstanding this drawback, in learning, teaching, and 

 working in the laboratory, I have been permitted to enjoy 

 a spell of thirty-nine years. In 1850, during a flying visit 

 from Germany to England, I stood, for the first time, in 

 the bright presence of Faraday. In February 1853, I gave 

 my first Friday evening lecture in the Royal Institution ; 

 and three months afterwards, on the motion of Faraday, 

 the old Chair of Natural Philosophy, which had been filled 

 at the beginning of the century by Thomas Young, was 

 restored, and to it I was elected. It causes me genuine 

 pleasure to think that I shall be succeeded in that Chair 

 by so true and so eminent a man of science as Lord 

 Rayleigh. 



It is not my intention to overburden you with egotism 

 to-night ; but, casting an earnest glance back upon the 

 past, a few words seem due from me to the memory of 

 one or two of the group of good men, no longer 

 with us, with whom I was so intimately associated. 

 Regarding Faraday I will confine myself to stating that 

 years have not altered my estimate of the beauty and the 

 nobleness of his character. He was the prince of experi- 

 mental philosophers ; but he was more than this — in every 

 fibre of his mind he was a gentleman. It is, however, of 

 two of our honorary secretaries that I wish now to 

 speak ; premising that, for the first seven years of 

 my life in the Royal Institution, the post of hono- 

 rary secretary was held by a cultivated and very 

 worthy gentleman, the Rev. John Barlow, From i860 

 to 1873— that is, for a stretch of thirteen memorable 

 years — I had the happiness of working hand in hand with 

 Dr. Bence Jones. Never in my experience have I met a 

 man more entirely and unselfishly devoted to the further- 

 ance of scientific work. I hardly like to mention the 

 following incident, because it furnishes but a scanty 

 measure of his devotion. On one occasion I was in need 

 of funds to carry out some experiments of a delicate and 



