96 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



iellect. If he were so, science would, I believe, be his 

 proper nutriment, But he feels as well as thinks ; he 

 is receptive of the sublime and beautiful as well as of 

 the true. Indeed, I believe that even the intellectual 

 action of a complete man is, consciously or uncon- 

 sciously, sustained by an undercurrent of the emotions. 

 It is vain to attempt to separate the moral and emo- 

 tional from the intellectual. Let a man but observe 

 himself, and he will, if I mistake not, find that in 

 nine cases out of ten, the emotions constitute the 

 motive force which pushes his intellect into action. 

 The reading of the works of two men, neither of them 

 imbued with the spirit of modern science neither of 

 them, indeed, friendly to that spirit has placed me here 

 to-day. These men are the English Carlyle and the Ame- 

 rican Emerson. I must ever gratefully remember that 

 through three long cold German winters Carlyle placed 

 me in my tub, even when ice was on its surface, at five 

 o'clock every morning not slavishly, but cheerfully, 

 meeting each day's studies with a resolute will, deter- 

 mined whether victor or vanquished not to shrink from 

 difficulty. I never should have gone through Analytical 

 Geometry and the Calculus had it not been for those men, 

 I never should have become a physical investigator, 

 and hence without them I should not have been here 

 to-day. They told me what I ought to do in a way 

 that caused me to do it, and all my consequent intel- 

 lectual action is to be traced to this purely moral source. 

 To Carlyle and Emerson I ought to add Fichte, the 

 greatest representative of pure idealism. These three 

 unscientific men made me a practical scientific worker. 

 They called out ' Act! ' I hearkened to the summons, 

 taking the liberty, however, of determining for myseii 

 the direction which effort was to take. 



And I may now cry * Act I ' but the potency of 



