Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/559

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SKETCH OF W. B. CARPENTER.
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sufficient account of its cause, it is invading a province of thought to which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of those who ought to be its best friends. For while the deep-seated instincts of humanity, and the profoundest researches of philosophy, alike point to mind as the one and only source of power, it is the high prerogative of science to demonstrate the unity of the power which is operating through the limitless extent and variety of the universe, and to trace its continuity through the vast series of ages that have been occupied in its evolution." In harmony with these views, he has maintained the genetic unity of all organic beings, and has had no difficulty in insisting that evolution is compatible with theism, and in fact gives a stimulus to the religious emotions.

Dr. Carpenter retired from the registrarship of London University in May, 1879, on a pension, and was chosen a member of the senate of the institution. Among the most important incidents of his career as registrar is mentioned the fact that he secured for the study of natural science the recognition it has enjoyed at the university, and the important place it has always held in the examinations. Shortly after his retirement a movement was instituted, with Earl Granville, Sir John Lubbock, and Dr. William Smith at its head, to procure a portrait of him to be presented to the university, as a memorial of his labors in its behalf.

Arduously as Dr. Carpenter was engaged in scientific research, he found time to make himself useful and appreciated in public and social life. lie took pleasure in making science intelligible to the public, and for this purpose accepted a part in the management of the Gilchrist trust for popular lectures, and delivered lectures in the Gilchrist and Swiney courses. His articles on the zoetrope and other similar toys, in the "Intellectual Observer," are commended for their clearness, and the same quality of style contributed very largely to make his physiological treatises popular. He took the highest interest in social questions, and was always glad to throw the light of scientific knowledge upon them. He was quick to perceive the evils of indulgence in intoxicating liquors, became an advocate of total abstinence, and lectured on temperance, while he afterward concluded that there was a legitimate use for wine. Upon Dr. Ray Lankester, who knew him from his own boyhood, "he always produced the most vivid impression of a man of indomitable energy, who had accepted as the highest duty and keenest delight of his life the promotion, whether by advocacy or by research, of true knowledge." "No man of science," Dr. Lankester says in another notice of him, "could witness without respect and sympathy the ardent devotion of the veteran naturalist to the cause of scientific progress, and the earnest simplicity of his character." Whatever he said when his researches were the subject of conversation "was admirable, and his willingness to meet fairly an antagonist was no less indicative of the true, single-hearted man of