John Locke became world-famous by reason of his still celebrated “Essay concerning Human Understanding.” He was also of political importance, having occupied for years the position of confidential adviser to the great Earl of Shaftesbury. Professor Campbell says of him: “Locke is apt to be forgotten now, because in his own generation he so well discharged the intellectual mission of initiating criticism of human knowledge, and of diffusing the spirit of free enquiry and universal toleration which has since profoundly affected the civilized world. He has not bequeathed an imposing system, hardly even a striking discovery in metaphysics, but he is a signal example in the Anglo-Saxon world of the love of attainable truth for the sake of truth and goodness. If Locke made few discoveries, Socrates made none. But both are memorable in the record of human progress.” Robert Boyle, the natural philosopher, was the seventh son and fourteenth child of the great Earl of Cork. His scientific work procured him extraordinary reputation among his contemporaries. It was he who “first enunciated the law that the volume of gas varies inversely as the pressure, which among English-speaking people is still called by his name.” Great as were his attainments they were almost over-shadowed by the saintliness of his character, the liveliness of his wit and the incomparable charm of his manner. Boyle was a man of the most feeble health. This is what Evelyn says of him: “The contexture of his body seemed to me so delicate that I have frequently compared him to Venice glass, ... [which] though wrought never so fine, being carefully set up, would outlast harder metals of daily use.” Robert Hooke, the experimental philosopher, was both deformed and diseased. He was not a great man and his scientific achievements would have been “more striking if they had been less varied.” Nevertheless he was renowned in his day, and his contribution of real importance for, although “he perfected little he originated much.” I mention him, and shall mention several others, who have been forgotten by all but scholars, because I wish to show how large an army stands behind its illustrious chiefs. Besides, if we contemplate only the giant luminaries of the firmament of fame, we shall become discouraged. They paralyze us by the very intensity of the admiration they evoke. Lesser men, on the contrary, for the reason that they are nearer our own orbit, are more likely to stir us into emulation. Herbert Spencer’s achievements are too well known to necessitate further comment. He was exceedingly delicate and at his best only able to work three hours a day. Descartes, the foremost French philosopher, had a feeble and somewhat abnormal body. “Yet he considered it” (I am quoting Mr. Edmund Gosse) “well suited to his own purposes, and was convinced that the Cartesian philosophy would not have been improved, though the philosopher’s digestion might, by developing the thews of a plough-boy.”