WILLIAM BOWER TAYLOR. 655 



of general welfare or special charities. He never married, and unfor- 

 tunately had no realization of the happiness, the incentive, the dignity, 

 and the honor of the home and family. 



He had great detestation of frauds, shams, and dishonesty of all 

 kinds, and moreover had the courage of his convictions in denouncing 

 imposters and charlatans. He was not swayed by an array of numbers 

 or dignitaries in forming his opinions, but believed with the great 

 philosopher Galileo, that " In questions of science the authority of a 

 thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." 



He was courteous, kind, and unselfish in a marked degree, and was 

 uniformly cheerful and dignified. 



He was fond of the drama, and this appears to have been the princi- 

 pal source of his recreation. 



His penmanship was particularly delicate, refined, and distinct, and 

 is identically the same for the last forty years of his life. He left an 

 immense mass of manuscript notes on every subject to which he had 

 given attention. Economical to a degree almost approaching parsi- 

 mony, he wasted nothing, and condemned and despised extravagance 

 or display either in private or in public life. 



Dr. Edward Farquhar has contributed the following remarks in 

 regard to Mr. Taylor's scientific characteristics: 



Of the whole philosophy and theory of evolution, whether embodied 

 in the researches and suggestions of Darwin, or the more generalized 

 thought of Spencer, he was so complete a master that he stood as an 

 expositor of it, perhaps as the expositor, to a very interested circle of 

 acquaintance. 



Atomic theory was one of his most peculiar haunts, linguistics, 

 especially comparative philology, might have been taken for his natural 

 destiny; psychology was a familiar region of thought and of close 

 observation; rhetoric and style, or minute analysis and discrimination; 

 while mathematical principles he was particularly fitted to expound 

 because he grasped them not in mere specialty, but in their relations 

 with truth in general. 



Mr. Lester F. Ward, one of the most learned and distinguished mem- 

 bers of the Washington Philosophical Society, has remarked: 



Mr. Taylor, although primarily a physicist, was widely informed on 

 all the deeper topics of general science. His mind possessed a delicate 

 sensibility to suggestion from others, and was influenced wholly by the 

 inherent merit of the suggestion and not at all by the supposed com- 

 petency or incompetency of the person making it. Still, on most ques- 

 tions, he had settled convictions, and on nearly all important subjects 

 he possessed original ideas, the results of prolonged independent 

 thought. His conversation was particularly charming from the fact that 

 it combined great learning and originality with the utmost simplicity 

 and a complete absence of dogmatism. In a word, his entire character 

 illustrated how extremely liberal genuine wisdom can afford to be. 



Mr. Taylor enjoyed good health nearly the whole of his life, though 

 for many years he had not taken the customary leave of absence from 



