IN THE LAST HALF-CENTURY. 25 



and their rivalries, like the rest of the 

 world; but whatever by-ends may mar 

 their dignity and impede their usefulness, 

 this chief end redeems them.* Nothing 

 great in science has ever been done by 

 men, whatever their powers, in whom the 

 divine afflatus of the truth -seeker was 

 wanting. Men of moderate capacity have 

 done great things because it animated 



* Fresnel, after a brilliant career of discovery in 

 some of the most difficult regions of physico-inathe- 

 matical science, died at thirty-nine years of age. The 

 following passage of a letter from him to Young 

 (written in November 1824), quoted by Whewell, so 

 aptly illustrates the spirit which animates the scientific 

 inquirer that I may cite it : 



'For a long time that sensibility, or that vanity, 

 which people call love of glory is much blunted in me. 

 I labor much less to catch the suffrages of the public 

 than to obtain an inward approval which has always 

 been the mental reward of my efforts. Without doubt 

 I have often wanted the spur of vanity to excite me to 

 pursue my researches in moments of disgust and dis- 

 couragement. But all the compliments which I have 

 received from MM. Arago, De Laplace, or Biot, never 

 gave me so much pleasure as the discovery of a theo- 

 retical truth or the confirmation of a calculation by ex- 

 periment.' 



