DISCOURSE OF Dll. J. C. WELLING. 199 



nant taste, or an overmastering ambition.* Tlie "infirmities of 

 genius" often attest in their subjects the presence of a mental or 

 moral atrojihy, which has hindered the full-orbed development of 

 one or more among their mental and moral powers. But in Pro- 

 fessor Henry no one quality of mind or heart seemed to be in 

 excess or deficiency as compared with the rest. All were fused 

 together into a compactness of structure and homogeneity of parts 

 which gave to each the strength and grace imparted by an organic 

 union. And hence, while he was great as a philosopher he was 

 greater as a man, for, laying as he did all the services of his scien- 

 tific life on the altar of a pure, complete, and dignified manhood, 

 we must hold that the altar which sanctified his gifts was greater 

 than even the costliest offerings he laid upon it. 



It will not be expected that I should close this paper without 

 referring to the religious life and opinions of Professor Henry. 

 If in moral height and beauty he stood like the palm tree, tall, 

 erect, and symmetrical, it is because a deep religious faith was the 

 tap-root of his character. He was, on what he conceived to be 

 rational grounds, a thorough believer in theism. I do not think he 

 would have said, with Bacon, that he "had rather believe all the 

 fables in the Legend, the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this 

 universal frame is without a mind," for he would have held that in 

 questions of this kind we should ask not what we would "rather 

 believe," but what seems to be true on the best evidence before us. 

 He was in the habit of saying that, next to the belief in his own 

 existence, was his belief in the existence of other minds like his own, 

 and from these fixed, indisputable points, he reasoned, by analogy, 

 to the conclusion that there is an Almighty Mind pervading the uni- 

 verse. But when from the likeness between this Infinite Mind and 

 the finite minds made in His image, it was sought, by a 'priori logic, 

 or by any preconceived notions of man, to infer the methods of the 

 Divine working, or the final causes of things, he suspected at once 

 the intrusive presence of a false, as well as presumptuous, philo- 



*The phrase, as originally applied by Taylor, is descriptive of certain Incom- 

 plete ethical systems, but it is equally applicable to certain typical exempliflca- 

 tlons of human character; in which "the strength and the materials of six parts 

 of morality have been brought together wherewith to construct a seventh part." 



