and when thanking the company for the addresses, he remarked:—
You heap coals of fire on my head; you reward me for having enjoyed for fifty years the privilege of spending my time in the work most congenial to me, and in the happiest of surroundings. You could not do more for me if I had spent my life in hardships and dangers, fighting for my country, or struggling to do good among masses of our population, or working for the benefit of the people in public duty voluntarily accepted.
••••••••
I feel profoundly grateful; but when I think how infinitely little is all that I have done, I cannot feel pride—I only see the great kindness of my scientific comrades, and of my friends in crediting me with too much. One word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that I have made during fifty-five years, and that word is failure. I know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relations between ether, electricity, and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than I knew and tried to teach fifty years ago in my first session as professor. Something of sadness must come of failure; but in the pursuit of science inborn necessity to make the effort brings with it much of the "certaminus gaudia," and saves the naturalist from being wholly miserable, perhaps enables him to be fairly happy in his daily work. And what splendid compensations for philosophic failures have we had in the admirable discoveries by observation and experiment of the properties of matter, and in the exquisitely beneficent applications of science to the use of mankind, with which these fifty years have so abounded.
Two lessons are derived from the life-work of such a man as Lord Kelvin. The theoretical speculations of the philosopher, and the practical inventions of the scientist. Science must, however, in the main be directed to the actual service of man in his daily life. Science largely determines national prosperity; and in this respect Lord Kelvin's inventions are of the highest order of usefulness.
