4M< Proceedings erf ike Br rush Association. 



more or less mathematicians,, and must separately study the mathematical 

 grounds of their science ; and although in this, as in every other physical 

 science, in every science which rests partly on the observation of nature, 

 and not solely on the mind of man, a faith in testimony is required, that 

 the human race may not be stationary, and that the accumulated treasures 

 of one man or of one generation of men may not be lost to another, yet 

 even here, too, the individual must act, and must stamp on his own men- 

 tal possessions the impress of his own individuality. The humblest stu- 

 dent of astronomy, or of any other physical science, if lie is to profit at 

 all by his stud}*, must in some degree go over for himself, in his own 

 mind, if not in part with the aid of his own observation and experi- 

 ment, that process of induction which leads from familiar facts to ob- 

 vious laws, then to the observation of facts more remote, and to the 

 discovery of laws of higher order. And if even this study be a personal 

 act, much more must that discovery have been individual. Individual 

 energy, individual patience, individual genius, have all been needed, to 

 tear fold after fold away, which hung- before the shrine of nature ; to 

 penetrate, gloom after gloom, into those Delphic depths, and force the 

 reluctant Sibyl to utter her oracular responses. Or if we look from nature 

 up to nature's God, we may remember that it is written — u Great are the 

 works of the Lord, sought out of all those who have pleasure therein." 

 But recognising in the fullest manner the necessity for private exertion, 

 and the ultimate connexion of every human act and human thought with 

 the personal being of man, we must never forget that the social feelings 

 make up a large and powerful part of that complex and multiform being. 

 The affections act upon the intellect, the heart upon the head. In the 

 very silence and solitude of its meditations, still genius is essentially sym- 

 pathetic ; is sensitive to influences from without, and fain would spread 

 itself abroad, and embrace the whole circle of humanity, with the strength 

 of a world-grasping love. For fame, it has been truly said, is love dis- 

 guised. The desire of fame is a form of the yearning after love; and the 

 admiration which rewards that desire, is a glorious form of that familiar 

 and every-day love which joins us in common life to the friends whom 

 we esteem. And if we can imagine a desire of excellence for its own 

 sake, and can so raise ourselves above (well if we do not in the effort sink 

 ourselves below) the common level of humanity, as to account the aspira- 

 tion after fame only " the last infirmity of noble minds," it will still be 

 true that, in the greatest number of cases, and of the highest quality, 



Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, 



To scorn delights, and live laborious days. 



That mysterious joy — incomprehensible if man were wholly mortal — • 

 which accompanies the hope of influencing unborn generations; that rap- 

 ture, solemn and sublime, with which a human mind, possessing or pos- 

 sessed of some great truth, sees in prophetic vision that truth acknow- 

 ledged by mankind, and itself long ages afterward remembered and asso- 

 ciated therewith, as its interpreter and minister, and sharing in the offer- 

 ing duly paid of honour and of love, till it becomes a power upon the 

 earth, and fills the w r orld with felt or hidden influence: that joy, which 

 thrills most deeply the minds the most contemptuous of mere ephemeral 

 reputation, and men who care the least for common marks of popular 

 applause or outward dignity — does it not show, by the revival in another 

 form, of an instinct seemingly extinguished, how deeply man desires, in 

 intellectual things themselves, the sympathy of man ? If, then, the ascetics 

 of science — if those who seem to shut themselves up in their own separate 

 cells, and to disdain or to deny themselves the ordinary commerce of hu- 

 manity — are found, after all, to be thus influenced by the social spirit, — 

 we can have little hesitation in pronouncing that to the operation of this 

 spirit must largely be ascribed the labours of ordinary minds ; of those 



