To give even a brief account of all his physical researches would
require a separate volume; and many of them are too abstruse or
mathematical for the general reader. His varied services have been
acknowledged by numerous distinctions, including the highest honour a
British man of science can obtain-- the Presidency of the Royal Society
of London, to which he was elected at the end of last year.
Sir William Thomson has been all his life a firm believer in the truth
of Christianity, and his great scientific attainments add weight to the
following words, spoken by him when in the chair at the annual meeting
of the Christian Evidence Society, May 23, 1889 :-
'I have long felt that there was a general impression in the non-
scientific world, that the scientific world believes Science has
discovered ways of explaining all the facts of Nature without adopting
any definite belief in a Creator. I have never doubted that that
impression was utterly groundless. It seems to me that when a
scientific man says--as it has been said from time to time--that there
is no God, he does not express his own ideas clearly. He is, perhaps,
struggling with difficulties; but when he says he does not believe in a
creative power, I am convinced he does not faithfully express what is in
his own mind, He does not fully express his own ideas.
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