scientific co-laborers has been unquestioned.
Moreover, those best acquainted with Prof. Tyndall know that his solicitude in doing justice to his scientific brethren, as evinced in difficult circumstances, is so earnest as to be almost morbid. No man is freer from petty jealousies, or the narrowing influence of national bias, than he. Attaching a serious meaning to the common sentiment that "science is of no country," he has stemmed the violent currents of local feeling in his own, and aimed to be just and generous to foreigners when their claims have been depreciated by British scientists. This is perfectly understood by all who are familiar with recent scientific controversy. His championship of the German Mayer, the Savoyard Rendu, and the American Agassiz, when their rights as discoverers were denied by his own countrymen, showed the breadth of his sympathies and the strength of his sense of justice. Nor is it improper here to add that he came to this country to help on the work of science, moved by no low or sordid considerations. He resisted social solicitations in a way that was not a little misinterpreted, that he might do the work he had undertaken in the best manner; and contributed all that he got from half a year's hard labor to assist in the scientific education of worthy young men of this country for whose special aid there had been, hitherto, no provision.
We submit that these considerations should have been sufficient to protect Prof. Tyndall from the gross assault in the Nation, which could not be replied to until a sensation-seeking press had scattered the calumnious charges from one end of the country to the other. Something, we say again, was due to character, that should have prevented the diffusion of such aspersions until they had been thoroughly looked into, and the party most concerned had been consulted. We appeal to every candid reader, if it would not have been a fairer proceeding for the editor to have sent the article to Prof. Tyndall, if he thought it worth attention, and to have asked him what it meant, that the defense might have accompanied the attack, had he still thought the matter proper for publication.
The case has now assumed a different aspect. The anonymous writer in the Nation has recently rehashed and amplified his statement, put his name to it, and published it in the New York Tribune. It is noteworthy that, while the writer announces himself to have been an assistant of Prof. Henry, he recognizes the necessity of disavowing all complicity on the part of that gentleman in these assaults upon Tyndall. It would have been well if this had been thought of a little earlier; and there is no reason for. the disclaimer now that should not have impelled Prof. Henry to protect himself from misapprehension, by following the publication of the article in the Nation by a prompt statement of the fact that he had nothing whatever to do with it.
With the larger portion of the communication to the Tribune we have no concern, as its four closely-printed columns are chiefly occupied in trumping up new and petty imputations against Prof. Tyndall that are wholly unworthy of notice. Borrowing a hint from the tactics of our political canvass, the writer seems to think that the way to substantiate one charge is to pile up more. But the case, as now even more fully presented, has not a leg to stand upon. In fact, the writer has put an end to it himself by attempting to give his proofs. We have said that the article in the Nation made charges without giving the evidence; that evidence is now forthcoming, and, as we shall see, instead of sustaining, refutes the charges and explodes the case.
Prof. Tyndall had said in his book on "Sound" that Dr. Derham's paper, published in 1708, and which contains
