series of the most remarkable men of the present century. He is not only a distinguished laborer in the line of original research, but also one of the best living expounders of scientific principles. His books are everywhere read in this country with avidity, and have done more to give precise and definite knowledge of the principles of the sciences of which they treat than any other series of works ever published. Indeed, it is only a master in science who is capable of preparing elementary scientific works. With a modesty—or, perhaps, self-respect—which constitutes a distinguishing trait of the man of true science? Professor Tyndall omitted to mention the fact that many of the phenomena which he presented in his lectures were his own discoveries. In the proposition which he has announced of giving the proceeds of his lectures to advance the cause of abstract science in this country, he has evinced another characteristic of the higher type of the scientist—namely, a paramount regard for his mission and a generous sympathy with humanity, as expressed in an aphorism of the founder of the Smithsonian Institution, that "the man of science is of no country; the world is his country, and mankind his countrymen."
In an age and country which boasts of its intelligence it might seem superfluous to say a word in regard to the importance of the cultivation of science, or, in other words, of a knowledge of the laws of the phenomena of the universe of which we form a part, yet it is lamentably the case that few comparatively, especially among statesmen and politicians, and even among those devoted to literature and the fine arts, properly appreciate the influence of abstract science on the present condition of the civilization of the world. Living in the present, enjoying its innumerable comforts and facilities of life, they do not realize the conditions of the past, or, if they imperfectly realize them, the changes are attributed to fortuitous circumstances really exercising a subordinate influence, or to apparent proximate causes such as the immediate practical application of science to art.
It is only of late years that the investigations of the tendencies and changes of the human family have been systematically studied under the general denomination of anthropology, and its subdivisions of ethnology and archæology. From these studies we may infer that man is a being capable of indefinite moral and intellectual development; not that he is a progressive being from the result of a law of necessary development, but, as it were, providentially so under the influence of certain essential conditions, among which are, first, freedom of intercourse of different peoples, and the ready interchange of thought; second, a prevailing religion which shall enjoin purity, love, justice, and truth; and, third, an ever-increasing knowledge of the laws, or principles, of the changes of the phenomena of Nature which constitute abstract science. That man is not necessarily a progressive being is shown by the fact that large portions of the inhabitants of the world are still in a condition of barbarism, from which they show
