is learning varied and profound,
and his achievements vast.

We honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has
contributed as much as any man living or dead to the real prosperity of
the world. We honor him because he honored us--because he labored for
others--because he was the most learned man of the most learned
nation--because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. For
these reasons he is honored throughout the world. Millions are doing
homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his
name with reverence, and recounting what he accomplished.

We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents mountains and
volcanoes--with the great plains--the wide deserts--the snow-lipped
craters of the Andes--with primeval forests and European capitals--with
wildernesses and universities--with savages and savants--with the
lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes--with peaks and pampas, and steppes,
and cliffs and crags--with the progress of the world--with every
science known to man, and with every star glittering in the immensity
of space.

Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; wasted
none of his time in the stupidities, inanities and contradictions of
theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy
and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the nineteenth
century. Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of
truth; he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold
from the dross in the crucible of his grand brain. He was never found
on his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the
grand, tranquil column of reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer
of nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a
century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation,
respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary
head upon her bosom--upon the bosom of the universal mother--and with
her loving arms around him, sank into that slumber called death.

History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals.

The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he
inscribed his name, and there, upon everlasting stone, his genius wrote
this, the sublimest of truths:

"THE UNIVERSE IS GOVERNED BY LAW!"

INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON WHICH WAY?

Ladies and Gentlemen: For thousands of years men have been asking