Part 10

From the first he devoted himself to embryology. While this, as among the youngest of the biological sciences, admits of rapid work, it is far from admitting rapid generalization. No other branch of morphology requires more painstaking; the very materials one has to study are minute and indefinite, and two minds will often place different constructions upon the same specimen. There is abundant opportunity for scientific guesswork, with the feeling of security that disproval will be difficult. Balfour understood the real value of guessing at truth, but he always made it very clear to the reader when he was so doing; his hypotheses were accompanied by definite statements in which the reasons pro and con were set forth in all impartiality to each. Herein lies the chief charm and merit of his work, its brilliant suggestiveness, side by side but never in confusion with well-established facts. Every chapter contains half a dozen invitations to other investigators to prove or disprove certain provisional statements. Vast as is the information contained in his “Comparative Embryology,” Balfour himself appreciated that, as far as mere facts went, the first volume would be somewhat out of date before the second was in press. Not so, however, with his masterly discussions of these facts, which are found on every page and the value of which, to embryologists, cannot be estimated. Moreover, to his authorship is largely due the rapidly spreading interest in embryology in England and America—a branch of science, it will be remembered, which had previously been mostly in German hands.

One frequently heard from him his own very modest opinion of his work; this was not at all inconsistent with striking independence and originality of thought and adherence to his convictions. His modesty added more to the recognition of his genius than any assertions of his own could have done. Many were pressing forward to assert his claims, and honors were showered upon him in England and abroad. He was admired and beloved by all who knew him. In scientific discussion he had the rare quality, which Richard Cobden is said to have possessed, of remaining on the pleasantest personal terms with his opponents.

His energy in all matters was great and his power of writing was unusually rapid; but, advised by kind friends, he rarely overtaxed his strength, which was limited. He spent most of his evenings with his friends, throwing off from his mind the labors of the day and talking vivaciously upon the topics of the time. When the first volume of his “Comparative Embryology” was being written, he generally worked but five hours daily, giving much time to physical exercise, bicycling or tennis, into which he entered with all the enthusiasm of his nature. He was courageous but not reckless, and nothing in his previous life would lead us to suppose that the mountain climb which proved fatal was undertaken in a foolhardy spirit.

Balfour in a few years accomplished the work of a lifetime. His influence was and is twofold: first, upon those with whom he came into personal contact, especially his scientific associates and students, an influence which cannot fail to endure (well expressed by Professor Kitchen Parker: “I feel that his presence is still with me; I cannot lose the sense of his presence”); secondly, the influence of his scientific work, which for genius, breadth, and truth can never be surpassed. May the splendid memorial which has been raised for him perpetuate his noble example as a teacher and man of science.

From a photograph by Brown Brothers

JAMES BRYCE ]

JAMES BRYCE 1838–1922

I had the privilege of knowing James Bryce for many years and enjoyed many long and delightful conversations with him. Beyond all other great men I have known he impressed me as most eager for broad and deep knowledge both of men and of nature. He gained more by travel and direct observation than by reading the works of others.

Although an address was carefully thought out, the following was entirely extemporaneous, because I was suddenly called upon to deliver it in the pulpit of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine—quite a contrast to the customary platform of the college and university lecturer! I felt compelled by the surrounding religious atmosphere to use a text, which was happily afforded by the choir as it sang Newman’s beautiful hymn as a processional.

JAMES BRYCE

I am not permitted to have a text, because I am not a preacher. As a naturalist, I am speaking here by invitation of the Bishop and the Dean of this Cathedral on the life of James Bryce as a student of man and of nature. I find in the opening of the beautiful hymn sung by the choir on entering this Cathedral the words which I cannot resist paraphrasing as the central thought of what I am about to say: Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling confusion.

“Lead, Kindly Light,” was the inner motive of the life of James Bryce—the kindly light of the genial nature of a man of faith and confidence, of a man of rugged resolution and constant determination, who never faltered in his efforts, whether it was a physical, or social, or intellectual, or political problem, to throw upon it the light of most careful and thorough examination.

Then another line of the same beautiful poem of John Henry Newman,

O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent,

reveals the other aspect of the life of James Bryce which will impress you if you will read his four volumes as a traveler and explorer. When confused by the world and by the strife of political parties, Bryce would go off quietly on one of these great journeys of his, borne by his stout Scotch heart and by his indomitable energy as a mountain-climber. Brought up in a climate which brings out the best qualities in a man—that hardy nursery of strong Britons; born in northern Ireland, where the kindly qualities and genial nature of the Irish blend with the sturdy persistence of the Scotch, he was equipped by birth as well as by the early training of a remarkable father to enter life along many paths which opened out before him.

Follow him, no doubt somewhat confused, at the age of thirty-nine, after a period of political service in Parliament and lectureship in Oxford University, on that remarkable journey through and beyond the countries which he studied in his “Holy Roman Empire,” into and through Asia Minor, into the region on the borderland of Armenia, in search of Mount Ararat, and you observe an event in his life most typical and characteristic. Every one told him it was impossible to ascend Mount Ararat. One after another the parties that started with him fell behind, until, finally, about four or five thousand feet from the summit, he was entirely alone, and from that point he pushed on to the hollow between the twin peaks where the Bible myth tells us the Ark of Noah rested. He did not find any traces of the Ark, but he seems to have found, in that ascent and in the wonderful survey which the ascent gave him of the great tides of human history which have ebbed and flowed around the base of that mountain, a new and fresh perspective for all his future historical works. There, also, at the turning-point in life, when according to some men the critical age of forty is reached, James Bryce reversed the natural order of things, and until the age of eighty-three—during the latter part of which period I had the honor of making his acquaintance—became a younger man, a larger man, a greater man every year to all those who had the pleasure and privilege and inspiration of knowing him.

What a contrast his thoroughness with the superficiality of other men who have treated the same broad periods of human history, of human activity, and to whom many people appeal for light and guidance! Wells, writing his “Outline of History” from his armchair, guided by the work of all the authors upon whom he could lay his hand; Bryce, seeking out the fountains, the origins, the beginnings of these wonderful movements of peoples which are summed up in the words “Human History.” Himself retreading the paths worn by men for centuries, observing that wonderful variety of races of men where, in entering Transcaucasia, he came on the borders between Turkey and the Russian Dominions; again, when in South Africa, he touched the life of the Kaffirs, of the Hottentots, and of that race of Bushmen which stands at the very bottom of the human scale; finally, in South America, at the age of seventy-four, he entered the intimate life of a people he had not touched before, of the Spanish, the Portuguese, the native Indians of the South American Continent—always traveling with the same genial attitude, the same kindliness, the same lack of criticism, which distinguished his life and writings throughout.

Small wonder that, having as a boy and young man been brought up among the British people, among the Scotch, the Irish, the English, the Scotch-Irish, who are the fountains of our own American life, when he came to America he understood the Americans and was welcomed as one of us, as a man who could interpret our life, our institutions, who could tell us the truth about ourselves without our being offended, the most difficult message that any one coming from any other part of the world can give to the American!

Now we find that Bryce is not dead! James Bryce is not dead! James Bryce is living! He will live! Out of his inspiration, from those penetrating eyes, from that wonderful intellect, from those profound and unbiassed and unprejudiced studies, out of the fruits of years of personal experience, he finally surveys our American institutions in the last, and one of the greatest, of his works, “Modern Democracies.” Nothing could attest the truthfulness of his nature more clearly than the fact that the note of that volume is so different from the note of his early, confident writings as a young ardent Liberal, almost Radical. He found in our midst, and in the new democracies everywhere, so many confusing thoughts, so many unexpected counter-currents, that he comes out, as does every great and profound student of human life and human affairs who approaches the matter from the scientific standpoint of profound knowledge, with a clear warning of the dangers which surround us if we do not take heed and if we lose the art of choosing our leaders, our spiritual leaders, our intellectual leaders, our political leaders.

Leadership! Leadership is the last note, to my mind, of Bryce’s life. He is leading. He himself will lead because he has become now, and I believe for all time, the Kindly Light which will guide us through the interpretation of our American institutions.

From a painting by A. Edelfelt

LOUIS PASTEUR ]

LOUIS PASTEUR 1822–1895

To my mind Louis Pasteur is the greatest benefactor of mankind since the time of Jesus Christ, and as he was inspired by religious sentiment I claim that he should be enrolled among the saints and enshrined in our cathedrals. It is of this aspect of his life that “The New Order of Sainthood” deals. Contemplation of this aspect of his life led me to reflections upon Nature and Religion, in which I was greatly aided by my previous studies in the natural philosophy of the Greeks and of Augustine and was guided to the wonderful passages of Dante in “The Divine Comedy” by Bishop Boyd-Carpenter. The sequel to this address is to be found in “Evolution and Religion,” my reply to William Jennings Bryan.

THE NEW ORDER OF SAINTHOOD

Among all the great scientific men whom the nineteenth century produced Pasteur ranks supreme as a benefactor of mankind. He played the original and creative part in the movement for the prevention and relief of human suffering which Sir William Osler has aptly termed “Man’s Redemption of Man.” It is far under the truth to say that he has saved more lives than Napoleon destroyed. In nature he found the causes of a very large part of human suffering; in nature he also found the means of controlling or averting suffering. His attitude toward his fellow men was one of noble compassion. His first trial of the hydrophobia serum with a young sufferer brought to him, his agony of mind lest the remedy itself might be the means of causing death, his joy as the child was restored in perfect health to its parents, is one of the most beautiful episodes in human history. As recited by Radot, “Pasteur was going through a succession of hopes, fears, anguish, and an ardent yearning to snatch little Meister from death; he could no longer work. At night feverish visions came to him of this child, whom he had seen playing in the garden, suffocating in the mad struggles of hydrophobia, like the dying child he had seen at the Hôpital Trousseau in 1880. Vainly his experimental genius assured him that the virus of that most terrible of diseases was about to be vanquished, that humanity was about to be delivered from this dread horror—his human tenderness was stronger than all, his accustomed ready sympathy for the sufferings and anxieties of others was for the nonce centred in ‘the dear lad.’...

“Cured from his wounds, delighted with all he saw, gayly running about as if he had been in his own Alsatian farm, little Meister, whose blue eyes now showed neither fear nor shyness, merrily received the last inoculation; in the evening, after claiming a kiss from ‘Dear Monsieur Pasteur,’ as he called him, he went to bed and slept peacefully.”

The life of Pasteur is typical of that of many students of nature, of less genius, perhaps, but of equal devotion and self-sacrifice. It is interesting to imagine what tributes might have been rendered to Pasteur if he had lived in the period of the early saints of the Church and had won the love of his generation and the reverence of succeeding generations by his mighty works. It is interesting to surmise what would have been the attitude of the early Church toward such a benefactor of mankind. Our belief today is that Pasteur should stand as a symbol of the profound and intimate relation which must develop between the study of nature and the religious life of man, between our present and future knowledge of nature and the development of our religious conceptions and beliefs.