EDITOR'S TABLE. 



701 



we see at times a disposition to exult 

 in the scientific view of things as 

 being fatal to all hopes and aspira- 

 tions which do not rest on facts as 

 material as those of physiology or 

 mechanics. Man, however, has never 

 yet confined himself to the circle of 

 his material wants and satisfactions, 

 nor is there any evidence that he is 

 going to do so in the future. Indi- 

 viduals may choose to grovel, but the 

 race, we may be sure, will, through 

 all vicissitudes, strive after the high- 

 est life that is possible for it, and 

 will not be turned away from its 

 ideals simply because there are some 

 who say that they do not know what 

 an ideal is. The mission of science 

 is a great and glorious one far great- 

 er and more glorious than some who 

 claim to speak for it have any con- 

 ception of but it has no mission, 

 and no legitimate function, which 

 would divorce it from the higher life 

 of man or place it in antagonism to 

 his deepest instincts and intuitions. 



LORD KELVIN'S "FAILURE." 



Very needless, in our opinion^ 

 was the confession of failure which 

 formed so prominent a feature in 

 the speech delivered by Lord Kelvin 

 (Sir William Thompson) on the oc- 

 casion of the jubilee celebration ten- 

 dered to him at the University of 

 Glasgow in the month of June last. 

 The eminent professor's words were 

 as follows: "I might perhaps rightly 

 feel pride in knowing that the Uni- 

 versity and city of Glasgow have con- 

 ferred on me the great honor of hold- 

 ing this jubilee. ... I do feel pro- 

 foundly grateful. But when I think 

 how infinitely little is all that I have 

 done I can not feel pride ; I only 

 see the great kindness of my scien- 

 tific comrades, and of all my friends, 

 in crediting me for so much. One 

 word characterizes the most strenu- 

 ous of the efforts for the advance- 



ment of science that I have made 

 during fifty-five years; that word is 

 failure. I know no more of electric 

 and magnetic force, or of the relation 

 between ether, electricity, and pon- 

 derable matter, or of chemical affin- 

 ity, than I knew and tried to teach 

 to my students of natural philosophy 

 fifty years ago in my first session as 

 professor. Something of sadness 

 must come of failure, but . . . what 

 splendid compensations for philo- 

 sophical failures we have had in the 

 admirable discoveries by observation 

 and experiment on the properties of 

 matter, and in the exquisitely benefi- 

 cent applications of science to the 

 use of mankind with which these fifty 

 years have so abounded ! " 



Now, with all respect and defer- 

 ence to one of the very greatest 

 scientific men of the century, we ven- 

 ture to affirm that Lord Kelvin here 

 strikes a false note ; we even go so 

 far as to say that he indulges in false 

 sentiment. If the labors of his life 

 had been specifically devoted to find- 

 ing out the essential nature of elec- 

 tric and magnetic force, at divining 

 some ultimate mystery of Nature, we 

 could understand his speaking of 

 " failure " in the way he does ; but 

 seeing that nothing is more certain 

 than that no such aim or ambition 

 was present to his mind, but that his 

 efforts were devoted to just those 

 " discoveries by observation and ex- 

 periment on the properties of mat- 

 ter " and those M applications of sci- 

 ence to the use of mankind," in 

 which he acknowledges the last fifty 

 years to have been most fruitful ; and 

 considering that his distinguished 

 success in that field of labor is recog- 

 nized by the whole world, and was 

 the cause and justification of the 

 gathering held in his honor, we must 

 say that the word u failure : ' in con- 

 nection with such a career seems to 

 us singularly out of place. One of 

 his brother savants, Pi of. A. Gray, 



