xiv.] FORBES 1 SCIENTIFIC WORK. 41)1 



well-chosen and invariably successful experiments. I 



cannot recollect one instance in which he adopted, even 



for a few moments, the " sensational " style which is now 



so terribly common : and which is too often employed, 



after the manner of the cuttle-fish, to enable the lecturer 



scape from a difficulty in which his own ignorance 



involved him. 



In mathematical applications, far from attempting to 

 gloss over a difficulty, he was almost painfully elaborate, 

 i in the simplest matters. For the bulk of his class 

 his lectures were admirably adapted : and there can l>e 

 no doubt that, had tli< n in his day a Physical 



Laboratory attached to his chair, he would have sent out 

 many students trained, like his illustrious pupils Clerk- 

 Maxwell and Balfour Stewart, to perfection in nicety of 

 manipulation and accuracy of recording results. 



From the students' point of view he was regarded as 

 too strict a disciplinarian, visiting with what we looked 

 upon as uncalled-for severity very slight infractions of 

 order. This, however, was but the natural outward ex- 

 pression of his own intense earnestness of purpose and 

 sense of duty. All of us, who came to know him well, 

 found underlying it a grand substratum of geniality and 

 kindly interest. 



Like Brewster and llersehel, and even to some ex- 

 tent Faraday in physical science the ^ivat luminaries of 

 the generation which i> ju>t passing from amongst us 

 Forbes did not fully receive the grand doctrine of our 

 own generation the conservation of energy. 



