ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 27 



sufficient ; and therefore, as such, the physicist is not charged with 

 the great applications of his science. He is the hierophant, upon 

 whom devolves the communication of the mysteries. It is well 

 that it should be so, for his time is better occupied in cultivating 

 the genius of observation, rather than that of application ; and 

 the world into which he penetrates is inexhaustible in its riches. 

 Every accession of knowledge instead of making us feel that 

 the content of the limitless unknown is poorer, has on the contrary 

 made us feel it is infinitely richer than we imagined, and like the 

 man in Richter's dream, we almost would hide ourselves from the 

 persecution of the Infinite. 



A cursory outlook upon the world and the arrangements by 

 means of which we reach our material ends, may not instantly 

 disclose our dependence upon the achievements of abstract science. 

 Look but a little deeper, however, and at once it becomes apparent 

 that at every turn those achievements are the condition of our 

 progress. Glance, for example, for a moment at the commerce of 

 the modern world, at the work which has devolved upon the 

 mechanical engineer and the naval architect in its development, 

 at the great handling machinery and tools by means of which 

 commercial inter-communication is realized, at the necessity for 

 the economic expenditure of energy in the attainment of these 

 things : and then go back to the knowledge of material and con- 

 struction which is all through implied, and to the mathematical 

 knowledge which again lies behind the whole, and we shall not 

 fail to be impressed by the reality of the service rendered by 

 elements of knowledge apparently the most abstract and most 

 remote. The same result is reached, if, when we regard the mech- 

 anisms by means of which we communicate information of all kinds, 

 the modern printing press, the systems of telegraphing and tele- 

 phoning, and the dependence of the latter upon researches in 

 electricity and magnetism, and of all upon triumphs of mechanical 

 genius, so common that we have ceased to wonder at them, we 

 then think how the clear conception and wise application of 

 physical facts, demanding in turn still more abstract knowledge, 



