tered it. He laid his hand upon it, and it became achievement.
This he did through his absolute devotion, his singleness of purpose. He never sought his own; he never spared or coddled himself. If any man ever forgot himself in the service of Science, it was Whitney. To him Truth was the one goal; and he pursued it with a simplicity and sincerity rarely realized even in a religious consecration. It was this that made his work so genuine. His feet were always planted on solid ground, even when his thought touched the stars.
He found two philologies,—one afloat in clouds, the other chained in her cave. More than any other man of his time, he had the mind to precipitate the one and to deliver the other. The cave-dweller he headed toward the light, and he undergirded airy speculation with ponderable substance. Of all men, he it was who made ours an historical science, rooted in reality.
The lesson of his life is sincerity. To us who knew him, he stands for absolute intellectual integrity. To seek the truth and speak the truth was a necessity of his constitution. He never thought of lions in the way, but it was just as well for lions to get out of the way. He never roared, but on occasion there was that in his still, small voice to make the pretender tremble. This impression of sternness sometimes made by his righteous judgments may justify a more intimate word.
To one pupil, at least,—and one as little deserving as any,—he was the incarnation of benignity. How well I remember my first call upon him just four and twenty
