Professor Tyndall delivered on Monday a very interesting and 'elaborate
address to the Birmingham Midland Institute, the chief -subject of which,—physical and moral necessity,—we have sufficiently discussed elsewhere. Professor Tyndall began, however, with a modest exordium, in 'which he described himself as a kind of scientific hermit, unfit to breathe the 'vitalising ' atmosphere of the -world, except at the ex- pense of that scientific spirit which imposes as its condition, profound meditation, and insulation of thought. "The atmo- sphere, for example, which vivifies and stimulates your excellent representative, Mr. Chamberlain, would be death to me. There are organisms which flourish on oxygen. He is one of them. There are also organisms which demand for their duller lives a less 'vitalising air. I am one of them." We confess we doubt it. Professor Tyndall is scientific, of course, to the backbone, but he is also a popula.riser and rhetorician to the backbone. And this address, amongst others, proves it. He always sees the rhetorical aspects of science,—those aspects which lead up to a popular argument and illustration,—more vividly than any others. The
scientific atmosphere, as he breathes it, has at least as much oxygen in it as the political atmosphere ever has. Of course oxygen will combine with most substances, and so, too, the popular spirit will combine with most callings. Assuredly, Professor Tyndall picked out, as his scientific figure eminently is, against what he himself termed "the infinite azure of the past," will be remem- bered quite as much for the ozone in his thought, as for any other element of his being.
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