which raised the temperature of the mind, though it refused to accept shape, personal or otherwise, from the intellect. Perhaps the able critics of the Saturday Review are justified in speaking as they sometimes do of Mr. Carlyle. They owe him nothing, and have a right to announce the fact in their own way. I, on the other hand, owe him a great deal, and am also in honor bound to acknowledge the debt. Few, perhaps, who are privileged to come into contact with that illustrious man have shown him a sturdier front than I have, or in discussing modern science have more frequently withstood him. But I could see that his contention at bottom always was that the human soul has claims and yearnings which physical science cannot satisfy. England to come will assuredly thank him for his affirmation of the ethical and ideal side of human nature. Be this as it may, at the period now reached in my story, the feeling above referred to was indefinitely strengthened, my whole life being at the same time rendered more earnest, resolute, and laborious, by the writings of Carlyle. In this relation I cared little for political theories or philosophic systems, but I cared a great deal for the propagated life and strength of pure and powerful minds. At school I had picked up some mathematics and physics; my-stock of both was, however, scanty, and I resolved to augment it. But it was really with the view of learning whether mathematics and physics could help me in other spheres, rather than with the desire of acquiring distinction in either science, that I resolved, in 1848, to break the continuity of my life, and to devote the meagre funds I had then collected to the study of science in Germany.
But science soon fascinated me on its own account; and I could see that, to carry it duly and honestly out, moral qualities were incessantly invoked. There was no room allowed for insincerity—no room even for carelessness. The edifice of science had been raised by men who had unswervingly followed the truth as it is in Nature; and in doing so had often sacrificed interests which are usually potent in this world. Among these rationalistic men of Germany conscientiousness in work was as much insisted on as it could be among theologians. And why, since they had not the rewards or penalties of the theologian to offer to their disciples? Because they assumed, and were justified in assuming, that those whom they addressed had that within them which would respond to their appeal. If Germany should ever change for something less noble the simple earnestness and fidelity to duty which in those days characterized her teachers, and through them her sons generally, it will not be because of rationalism. Such a decadent Germany might coexist with the most rampant rationalism without their standing to each other in the relation of cause and effect.
My first really laborious investigation landed me in a region which harmonized with my speculative tastes. It was essentially an inquiry in molecular physics, having reference to the curious, and then perplexing, phenomena exhibited by crystals when freely suspended in the
