150 
HOWARD. 
strongly utilitarian motives of his activities there was a high 
idealism which led him to hold with Laplace that — 
“L 7 Astronomie, par la dignite de son objet et par la per- 
fection de ses theories, est le plus beau monument de Y esprit 
humain, le titre le plus noble de son intelligence/ 7 
ADDRESS OF MR. L. O. HOWARD, 
PRESIDENT COSMOS CLUB ; PERMANENT SECRETARY AMERICAN ASSOCIA- 
TION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 
The brief contribution which I shall make tonight to the 
memory of Simon Newcomb will be simply reminiscential 
in its nature, and will refer to only one or two sides of his 
many-sided and wonderful character. I knew him in the 
Council of the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, on the Board of Management of the Cosmos Club, 
and as Executive Secretary of the International Congress of 
Arts and Sciences at St. Louis in 1903, I saw him intimately 
for a few weeks under extraordinary conditions which gave 
me an insight into liis character which only those closest to 
him could have gained. 
When I joined the Cosmos Club nearly five and twenty 
years ago, I was shown about by my sponsors who introduced 
me to this and that well-known scientific man, and who ulti- 
mately pointed out a sternlooking, bearded man engaged in 
playing chess, with the whispered comment “That is the most 
eminent member of the Club, Simon Newcomb, the astro- 
nomer and mathematician. 77 The reverential awe with 
which I watched him was thoroughly genuine and lasted for 
many years. His face seldom softened with a smile and, 
although presented to him several times, I never ventured to 
accost him. Lie seemed so aloof from ordinary men, and 
always in an attitude so superior to the small things of life, 
that in his presence I felt like one of the smallest of those 
things. 
Years later I came into the Council of the American As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science, of which New- 
