ART. 209 - The Scientific Work of Tyndall

Summary

It is fitting that the present season should not pass without a reference on these evenings to the work of him whose tragic death a few months since was felt as a personal grief and loss by every member of the Royal Institution. With much diffidence I have undertaken the task to-night, wishing that it had fallen to one better qualified by long and intimate acquaintance to do justice to the theme. For Tyndall was a personality of exceeding interest. He exercised an often magical charm upon those with whom he was closely associated, but when his opposition was aroused he showed himself a keen controversialist. My subject of to-night is but half the story.

Even the strictest devotion of the time at my disposal to survey of the scientific work of Tyndall will not allow of more than a very imperfect and fragmentary treatment. During his thirty years of labour within these walls he ranged over a vast field, and accumulated results of a very varied character, important not only to the cultivators of the physical sciences, but also to the biologist. All that I can hope to do is to bring back to your recollection the more salient points of his work, and to illustrate them where possible by experiments of his own devising.