SIMON NEWCOMB. 
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reading and meditation included not merely astronomy, but 
meteorology, geography, geodesy, philosophy, literature, 
political economy; and, like the great Belgian, his object in 
life was to help in the cause of humanity as well as of 
science. 
He was never, I say, intolerant against contrary opinion 
which he supposed sincere; yet, a master of an exact science, 
he required of others that exactitude in expression which 
he imposed upon himself. While therefore patient before 
assertions of fact or of principle opposed to his own impres- 
sions or convictions, I have often remarked his insistence 
upon a clear expression of them, and have as generally 
observed that the inability of the interlocutor to frame such 
an expression concluded the argument. In an address as a 
former President of this Society, after asserting “the greatest 
want of the day to be the more general introduction of the 
scientific method and the scientific spirit into the discussion 
of our political and social problems,” he explained that under 
the scientific method must be included discipline in the 
scientific use of language. To such a discipline he had 
doubtless subjected himself. Indeed, there was evidence that 
he was doing so daily. The result was a style, both written 
and spoken, of extraordinary lucidity. He has been called 
“a master of clear thought and of good English,” but he was 
more than a master of good English : he was a master of 
clear expression, and he could have been a master of clear 
expression only because he was a master of clear thought. 
His capacity for simplicity of expression amounted to genius, 
and, when it was sustained in the exposition of even the 
pro founder problems of astronomy, you felt not merely that 
the conclusion was convincing, but that the genius of thought 
lav back of it. The intricate formulae with which he was 
C ' 
engaged, which would have rendered a little man confused, 
seemed in this large man but to confirm his fundamental 
simplicity. 
To Dr. Newcomb the universe was either intelligible or 
unknown. Tf intelligible, it must be capable of clear and 
exact expression; if unknown, it must be clearly distin- 
guished as such. With the enthusiasm and capacity for 
