paper was being read, pushed out the author's methods to far wider results 

 than the author had dreamed. The same power of extending rapidly in his 

 own mind novel mathematical researches, which ordinary men could have 

 done only by days of labor with paper and pencil, was exhibited at the ses- 

 sions of every scientific body and every chance meeting of a scientific charac- 

 ter at which he was present. What was quite as admirable was the way in 

 which he did it, giving the credit of the thought always to the author of the 

 essay under discussion. His pupils thus frequently received credit for what 

 was in reality far beyond their attainment. He robbed himself of fame in 

 two ways : by giving the credit of his discoveries to those who had merely 

 suggested the line of thought, and by neglecting to write out and publish 

 what he had himself thought out. 



Professor Peirce's activity of mind was by no means confined to the special 

 topics of physics and mathematics. He was among the first to read any new 

 and noteworthy poem or tale, to hear a new opera or oratorio ; and his judg- 

 ment and criticism upon such matters was keen and original. His interest 

 in religious themes was deep, but it was in the fundamental doctrines rather 

 than in the debates of sectarians : he was a devout believer in Christianity, 

 but held to no established creed. The quickness of his observation of exter- 

 nal things was as decided as was his power of abstraction. The plants and 

 insects by the roadside he observed as a naturalist observes them. To his 

 paper, read in 1849, before the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, the botanists and zoologists are indebted for what will, we think, 

 in the future progress of biology prove to be a great intellectual step in phys- 

 ics, lie showed in the vegetable world the demonstrable presence of an 

 intellectual plan ; that what had been called phyllotaxis involved an alge- 

 braic idea : Mr. Chauncey Wright afterward showed that this algebraic idea 

 was the solution of a physical problem. There the matter dropped, but it 

 will not lie neglected forever ; and in future discussions the value of this and 

 of sundry other of Peirce's contributions to organic morphology must be 

 acknowledged. 



The higher mathematical labors of so eminent a geometer must, of course, 

 lie beyond the course of general recognition. Among the things which give 

 him a just claim to this title may be mentioned his discussion of the motions 

 of two pendulums attached to a horizontal cord ; of the motions of a top ; of 

 the fluidity and tides of Saturn's ring; of the forms of fluids enclosed in ex- 

 tensible sacs ; of the motions of a sling ; of the orbits of the comet of 1843, 

 Uranus, and Neptune ; of the criteria for rejecting doubtful observations ; 



