G 



ADDRESS DELIVERED AS PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY, AT ITS 

 MEETING IN NEW YORK, OCTOBER 28, 1899 



[American Journal of Science [4] VIII, 401-411, 1899; Science, X, 825-833, 1899J; 

 Johns Hopkins University Circulars, No. 143, pp. 17-20, 1900] 



GENTLEMEN AND FELLOW PHYSICISTS OF AMERICA: We meet to-day 

 on an occasion which marks an epoch in the history of physics in Amer- 

 ica; may the future show that it also marks an epoch in the history of 

 the science which this society is organized to cultivate! For we meet 

 here in the interest of a science above all sciences which deals with the 

 foundation of the universe, with the constitution of matter from which 

 everything in the universe is made and with the ether of space by which 

 alone the various portions of matter forming the universe affect each 

 other even at such distances as we may never expect to traverse, what- 

 ever the progress of our science in the future. 



We, who have devoted our lives to the solution of problems connected 

 with physics, now meet together to help each other and to forward the 

 interests of the subject which we love, a subject which appeals most 

 strongly to the better instincts of our nature and the problems which 

 tax our minds to the limit of their capacity and suggest the grandest 

 and noblest ideas of which they are capable. 



In a country where the doctrine of the equal rights of man has been 

 distorted to mean the equality of man in other respects, we form a small 

 and unique body of men, a new variety of the human race, as one of 

 our greatest scientists calls it, whose views of what constitutes the great- 

 est achievement in life are very different from those around us. In this 

 respect we form an aristocracy, not of wealth, not of pedigree, but of 

 intellect and of ideals, holding him in the highest respect who adds the 

 most to our. knowledge or who strives after it as the highest good. 



Thus we meet together for mutual sympathy and the interchange of 

 knowledge, and may we do so ever with appreciation of the benefits to 

 ourselves and possibly to our science. Above all, let us cultivate the 

 idea of the dignity of our pursuit so that this feeling may sustain us in 

 the midst of a world which gives its highest praise, not to the investiga- 



