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Does not this practical line of thought quite naturally conduct 

 us to the influence upon character of scientific pursuits ? I need 

 not dwell, in such a gathering as this, upon the need there is in our 

 community of influences, elevating, controlling, permanent. The 

 very faces one meets in the busy thoroughfares tell of the want 01 

 that food for thought without which all true culture is unattainable. 

 There is an uplifting power in identifying ourself with a great 

 cause ; there is a transforming power in association with men 

 engaged in a noble pursuit. To many of us, in our busy lives, this 

 is all of science we can compass ; but from such practical sympathy 

 and intercourse with men of science and we have found them in 

 this Academy there comes a reflex influence of deepest value. In 

 the study of nature we are brought near to the God of nature, to 

 eternal verities ; and in such presence, shams, pretence, policy, hide 

 themselves, and character tends to what is simple and true. Did 

 you ever see a river flowing over a broad and shallow bed, useless, 

 with all its wealth of waters ? Have you seen the same stream 

 when engineering skill had, with granite walls, arrested the current 

 and guided it into a deep, quiet channel, ready to turn the wheels 

 of the factory or float the wealth of commerce ? Thus, in our lives 

 is needed a power that shall arrest the tide of frivolity and turn 

 life's energies to noble ends. 



There is, perhaps, no field upon which the influence of science 

 bears more directly than that of invention. The history of civiliza- 

 tion, since the revival in the fifteenth century, abundantly corrobo- 

 rates this statement. I am aware that some of the most noted 

 discoveries and inventions have been attributed to circumstances 

 purely accidental. The swinging of a cathedral lamp, it is affirmed, 

 suggested to GALILEO the laws controlling the movements of the 

 spheres ; the falling of an apple, to NEWTON, the law of gravita- 

 tion ; and the accidental juxtaposition of spectacle-lenses, to the 

 Dutch spectacle-maker, the telescope. But these incidents were the 

 occasion and in no sense the cause of these discoveries. They 

 revealed the men to themselves; made objective what had before 

 been subjective. It was previous profound thought and study 

 which gave to these trifling incidents their deep significance. Ab- 

 stract thought must precede the most valuable practical results. 

 The simplest movements, and processes, and machines, have re- 



