142 
WOODWARD. 
him for acts of kindness unostentatiously performed, and, 
perhaps, in many cases entirely unknown to the beneficiary. 
The severe and rigorous conditions which must be met by 
a man who would improve the work which has been done in 
celestial mechanics by the greatest minds in the history of 
exact science are conducive to an apparent, if not real, indif- 
ference to ordinary human affairs, but it is gratifying to 
think that a life so productive of such important results in a 
field not pervaded by humanizing influences, should have 
remained in the best sense so thoroughly a part of the age in 
which he lived. 
ADDRESS OF MR. R. S. WOODWARD, 
PRESIDENT OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 
The task which your committee has assigned to me is a 
difficult one. Our colleague, Professor Newcomb, was en- 
gaged in scientific work for a full half century. The greater 
part of his labors was devoted to the applications of dynam- 
ical astronomy, or that branch of astronomy which deals with 
the masses and the motions of the planets and their satellites 
in our solar system. Since the publication of Newton’s 
Principia, two hundred and twenty-three years ago, this field 
of scientific inquiry has been cultivated by nearly all of the 
scientific men of the world whose mathematical equipments 
were equal to the arduous requirements of this work. The 
field of activity we have to consider is therefore very exten- 
sive and very technical. 
One of the peculiar obstacles to be met in attempting an 
adequate description of such a work arises from the fact 
that very few people, even in a select audience like the one 
here present, have given sufficient attention to the principles 
involved to enable them to form a just appreciation of the 
merits and of the achievements of the eminent men who 
have worked in this field. This obstacle does not arise, as 
is commonly supposed, from a lack of the requisite mental 
faculties for an appreciation of the physical principles in- 
