432 Lord Rayleigh. 



and proudly aware that living quietly in their midst 

 they had a fellow citizen who, both in character and in 

 intellect, belonged to the select circle of the great men of 

 the age. 



In addition to personal scientific work to an extent that 

 has rarely been accomplished by one man, there is a con- 

 spicuous record of public service. He was naturally much in 

 request as a member of Royal Commissions and other official 

 inquiries. As Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 

 since 1908, in succession to brilliant tenures of the office 

 by two Dukes of Devonshire, it became his duty to be the 

 official interpreter of doubtful points in the Statutes which 

 he had himself helped to frame as a member of the Eoyai 

 Commission of 1878 : he used to say that at any rate he had 

 direct knowledge of what the Commissioners meant to enact,, 

 though that is not always the same thing as the legal 

 interpretation of their Statute. As time passed he began to 

 exhibit some passive resistance to additional service on public 

 bodies : he has been known to plead that it is a debatable 

 question how far a man should defer to his contemporaries 

 as to the manner of his service to his generation, rather than 

 follow the bent in which he is conscious that he can be most 

 effective. 



On the earliest possible occasion, on July 7, the President 

 of the French Academie des Sciences pronounced an eloge 

 funebre on their Foreign Associate Member ; and we can 

 conclude with his final words: "Theoricien puissant, sachant 

 user avec une rare habilete des ressources de l'analyse 

 mathematique, il s'est montre en meme temps experimentateur 

 hors de pair. Son nom restera comme un des plus illustres- 

 de la Science contemporaine." 



J. L. 



