by many men of science. "In my laboratory," said Robert Boyle, "I find that water of Lethe which causes that I forget everything but the joy of making experiments." This great natural philosopher is said to have remarked that he feared death only because after it he would know all things, and no longer have the delight of making discoveries. Dumas, the renowned French chemist, was a man of affairs as well as a man of science, yet he said: The recollections of an already long life have permitted me to become acquainted with a great variety of personages. And if I call on memory to picture to me how the type of true happiness is realised on earth I do not see it under the form of the powerful man clothed in high authority, nor under that of the rich man to whom the splendours of luxury and the delicacies of wellbeing are granted, but under that of the man of science, who consecrates his life to penetrating the secrets of Nature and to the discovery of new truths. J. B. A. Dumas. On the occasion of his eighty-ninth birthday, the biology class at the University of Colorado sent Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace a greeting, and to it the veteran naturalist replied: The wonders of Nature have been the delight and solace of my life. From the day when I first saw a bee-orchis in ignorant astonishment, to my first view of the grand forests of the Amazon ; thence to the Malay Archipelago, where every fresh island with its marvellous novelties and beauties was an additional delight— Nature has afforded me an ever-increasing rapture, and the attempt to solve some of her myriad problems an ever-growing sense of mystery and awe. And now, in my wild garden and green-house, the endless diversities of plant life renew my enjoyments; and the ever-changing pageants of the seasons impress me more than ever in my earlier days. I sincerely wish you all some of the delight in the mere contemplation of Nature's mysteries and beauties which I have enjoyed, and still enjoy. Dr. A. Russel Wallace. Darwin, with whom Wallace shared the honour of building up the great principle of natural selection as the prime cause of organic evolution, found equal pleasure in Nature to the end of his life; and his chief regret was that he had not been able to contribute more to natural knowledge and human happiness. 66 As for myself," he said, "I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to science. I feel no remorse from having committed any great sin, but have often and often regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures." So little done, so much to do, is the first and last thought of the man of science. A short time before hist death, Sir Isaac Newton expressed the memorable sentiment: "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." This was Newton's estimate of his work, yet it is related that when the Queen of Prussia asked Leibnitz his opinion of Newton, Leibnitz said that taking mathematicians from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half. After Sir William Herschel had discovered the planet Uranus he was commanded by King George III. to attend the court with his telescope. Writing to his sister Caroline he said: "Nothing now is talked of but what they call my great discoveries. Alas! this shows how far they are behind when such trifles as I have done are called great. Let me but get at it again; I will make such telescopes and see such things—that is, I will endeavour to do so." The less a man knows, the more content he is with his intellectual capacity and outlook: it requires a great man to realise the imperfections of his knowledge. At the jubilee of Lord Kelvin, celebrated at the University of Glasgow in 1896, representatives of "light and leading" from all parts of the world assembled to do honour to him. In science and in invention his work belongs to the front rank of results of human thought and ingenuity. Yet what did Lord Kelvin say in reply to the congratulations expressed upon his service in the cause of scientific progress? "One word characterises the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made perseveringly during fifty-five years; that word," he said, “is failure. I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether, electricity and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew and tried to teach to my students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in my first session as Professor. Kelvin. Far more than anyone else in his day and generation, Lord Kelvin contributed to the advancement of science and the application of natural knowledge to the use of mankind; yet in his mind the predominant idea was not satisfaction at success but disappointment at the failure of his persevering efforts during fifty years to understand the omnipresent ether of the physicist and the manner in which it is concerned in electric and magnetic forces. The achievement of ocean telegraphy, the improvement of the compass and sounding-line, the hundreds of papers on properties of matter, provide sufficient justification for a score of scientific careers, but to Lord Kelvin they seemed insignificant in comparison with the unsolved problem of the theory of matter which would unify them all. He knew that when the key to the riddle of the relation between ether and matter is discovered, mankind will be able to enter the treasurehouse in which Nature's secrets are stored. Such men as Lord Kelvin are learners always, because they realise that for one problem solved, one principle discovered, one structure completely described, there are a thousand of which they understand nothing. All Nature is but art, unknown to thee All chance, direction which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good. Pope. Man as a physical being is but a microscopic part of the universe, yet his mind carries him ever upward, and with spirit bold and unconquerable he seeks to reach the summit of Mount Olympus. Infinite space remains to humble his pride in spite of the knowledge he has obtained of the starry heavens; yet he pursues his inquiries into the unknown, and his children's children will continue the search. As we conquer peak after peak we see in front of us regions full of interest and beauty, but we do not see our goal, we do not see the horizon; in the distance tower still higher peaks, which will yield to those who ascend them still wider prospects, and deepen the feeling, the truth of which is emphasised by every advance in science, that "Great are the Works of the Lord." Sir J. J. Thomson. It is said that Thales of Miletus, who was the first of the Greeks to devote himself to the study of the stars, was on one occasion so intent upon observing the heavens that he fell into a well, whereupon a maidservant laughed and remarked, “In his zeal for things in the sky he does not see what is at his feet." Many men have been laughed at since then for gazing heavenward when their |