e face of
prolonged ill-health. No better instance could be found to show that the
highest intellectual genius may be found united with the most endearing
qualities of character. Kindly and genial in his home, warmly attached
to his friends, devoid of all jealousy of his fellow scientists, he
lived to see his name honoured throughout the civilized world; and many
who are incapable of appreciating his originality of mind can find an
inspiring example in the record of his life. There is no need to make
comparisons either of fame, of mental power, or of character; but the
choice of Lister may be justified by the fact that his science, the
science of Health and Disease, is one of absorbing interest to all men,
and that with his career is bound up the history of a movement fraught
with grave issues of life and death from which few families have been
exempt.

About these issues bitter controversies have raged; but it is to the
lesser men that the bitterness is due. By his family traditions, as well
as by his natural disposition, Lister was a man of peace; and though he
left the Society of Friends at the time of his marriage, he retained a
respect for their views which accorded well with his own nature. When
he had to speak or write on behalf of what he believed to be the truth,
it was from no motive of self-assertion or combativeness. He had the
calm contemplative mind of the student, whereas Bright, the Quaker
tribune, the champion of Repeal, had all the fervour of the man of
action. Lister's family had been Quakers since the beginning of the
eighteenth century; and at this time too they moved from Yorkshire to
London, where his grandfather and father were engaged in business as
wine merchants. But Joseph Jackson Lister, who married in 1818, and
became in 1827 the father of the famous surgeon, was much more than a
merchant. He had taught himself the science of optics, had made
improvements in the microscope, and had won his way within the sacred
portals of the Royal Society. Letters have been preserved which show us
how keen his interest in science always remained, and with what full
appreciation he entered into the researches which his son was making as
professor at Glasgow in the middle of the century. A father like this
was not likely to grudge money on the boy's education; but for the
Friends many avenues to knowledge were still closed, including the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He had to be content to go
succe