620 HENEY A. ROWLAND 



our view, there lived a man of almost superhuman intellect whose mind 

 seemed equally adapted to either pure or applied science. And yet Plu- 

 tarch says of him: "Archimedes possessed so high a spirit, so profound 

 a. soul, and such treasures of scientific knowledge, that, though the in- 

 ventions (referring to his military engines) had now obtained for him 

 the renown of more than human sagacity, he yet would not deign to 

 leave behind him any commentary or writing on such subjects, but, re- 

 pudiating as sordid and ignoble the whole trade of engineering, and 

 every sort of art that lends itself to mere use and profit, he placed his 

 whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there 

 can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life; studies, the superiority 

 of which to all others is unquestioned, and in which the only doubt can 

 be, whether the beauty and grandeur of the subjects examined, or the 

 precision and cogency of the methods and means of proof, most deserve 

 our admiration." 



Here, then, at the dawn of science the question of the relative value 

 of pure and applied science had been brought up. To the people of 

 Syracuse, who had to defend themselves against an overwhelming enemy, 

 the military engines of Archimedes were of far more interest than the 

 whole of geometry, for the knowledge of the ratio of the solid contents 

 of a sphere and its circumscribed cylinder cannot bring a dead man to 

 life or restore wealth to a plundered city. And yet, from a point of 

 view distant more than two thousand years,, we are forced to admit that 

 Archimedes was right. Archimedes' engines of destruction have passed 

 away, but the geometrical and mechanical truths which he discovered 

 are to-day almost the axioms of the mathematician and the worker in 

 physical science, and the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its 

 radius is to-day the most important of our physical constants. 



But this is only a meager part of the influence of this man. The 

 truths which he discovered have formed a part of the education of every 

 student of mathematics to the present time, and have given pure intel- 

 lectual enjoyment to all. They have helped to form the minds of all 

 those whom we consider great in our science, and they have done their 

 share in that march of progress which is gradually transforming the 

 world. 



Great should be the honor in which we hold the intellect of Archime- 

 des, but greater should be our reverence when we approach that noble 

 spirit which could ignore all worldly considerations and prefer the truths 

 of geometry to the vast physical power given him by his other inven- 

 tions, which were his amusements for a moment. We now see that he 



