Full materials for the life of Dr Whewell are at last before the public. We say ‘at last,’ because ten years elapsed from his death in 1866 before the first instalment of his biography appeared, and fifteen years before the second. Haste, therefore, cannot be pleaded for any faults which may be found in either of them. Nor, indeed, is it our intention to carp at persons who have performed a difficult task as well as they could. Far rather would we take exception to the strange resolution of Dr Whewell’s executors and friends to have his life written in separate portions. It was originally intended that there should be three of these published simultaneously: (1) the scientific, (2) the academic, (3) the domestic. As time went on, however, it was found impossible to carry out this scheme; and Mr Todhunter published the first instalment before anyone had been found to undertake either of the others. At last, after repeated failures, the second and third portions were thrown together, and entrusted to Mrs Stair Douglas, Dr Whewell’s niece by marriage. The defects of such a method are obvious; events scarcely worth telling once are told twice; documents that would have been useful to one biographer appear in the work of the other, and the like. For this, however, the authors before us deserve less blame than the scheme which they were compelled to follow.

Few lives, we imagine, have been so many-sided as to need a double, not to say a triple, narrative in order to set them fully before the public; and we assert most distinctly that Dr Whewell was the last man whose biography should have been so treated. His life, notwithstanding his diverse occupations and his widespread interests, presented a singular unity, due to his unflinching determination to subordinate his pursuits, his actions, and his thoughts to what he felt to be his work in the world, viz. the advancement, in the fullest sense the word can be made to bear, of his College and his University. He himself made no attempt to subdivide his time, so as to carry out some special work at the expense of other occupations. He found time for everything. His extraordinary energy, and his power of absorbing himself at a moment’s notice in whatever he had to do, whether scientific research or University business, enabled him to get through an astonishing amount of work in a single day. Much of what he did must have been very irksome and repulsive to him. He particularly disliked detail, especially that relating to finance. ‘I hate these disgusting details,’ was his way of putting aside, or trying to put aside, economical discussions at College meetings; and it was often hard to make him understand the real importance of these apparently small matters. Again, he always found time to go into society; to keep himself well acquainted with all that was going forward in politics, literature, art, music, science; and to carry on a vast correspondence with relatives, friends, and men of science in England and on the Continent. A considerable number of these letters have of course perished; but the extent of the collection is evident from Mr Todhunter’s statement that he had examined more than 3,500 letters written to Dr Whewell, and more than 1,000 written by him. His opinion of the latter, after this wide experience, is well worth quotation:

‘I do not think that adequate justice can be rendered to Dr Whewell’s vast knowledge and power by any person who did not know him intimately, except by the examination of his extensive correspondence; such an examination cannot fail to raise the opinion formed of him by the study of his published works, however high that opinion may be. The evidence of his attainments and abilities which is furnished by the fact that he was consulted and honoured by the acknowledged chiefs of many distinct sciences is most ample and impressive. United with this intellectual eminence we find an attractive simplicity and generosity of nature, an entire absence of self-seeking and assertion, and a warm concern in the fortunes of his friends, even when they might be considered in some degree as his rivals.’

The academic side of Dr Whewell’s life has no doubt been imperfectly related in both the works before us; and the due recognition of his merits will have to wait until the intellectual history of the University during the nineteenth century shall one day be written. On the other hand, we owe our warmest thanks to Mrs Stair Douglas for having brought prominently into notice, as only an affectionate woman could do, the softer side of Dr Whewell’s character. No one who did not know him as she did could have suspected the almost feminine tenderness, the yearning for sympathy, which were concealed under that rough exterior. These qualities, though much developed by his marriage, were characteristic of him throughout his whole life. The following passage, which has not before been printed, from a letter written in 1836 to the Marchesa Spineto, his oldest and most valued Cambridge friend, while he was busy writing his History of the Inductive Sciences, shows how necessary female sympathy was to him even when he was most occupied:

‘It appears to me long since I have seen you, and I am disposed to write as if your absence were a disagreeable and unusual privation; although it is very likely that if you had been here I might have seen just as little of you and might have felt just as lonely. And perhaps if I send you this sheet of my ruminations, it will find you in the middle of a new set of interests and employments, with only a little bit of your thoughts and affections at liberty to look this way; and so I shall be little the better for the habit you have taught me of depending upon you for unvarying kindness and love. Perhaps you will tell me I am unjust in harbouring such a suspicion, but do not be angry with me if I am; for you know such thoughts come into my head whether I will or no; and then go away the sooner for being put into words.’

University life changes with such rapidity, that no matter how great a man may have been, it is inevitable that he should soon become little more than a tradition to those who succeed him. Few of the present Fellows of Trinity College can have even seen Dr Whewell; and though his outward appearance has been handed down to posterity by a picture in the Lodge, a bust in the Library, and a statue in the Chapel, neither canvas nor marble, no matter how skilfully they may be handled, can convey the impression which that king of men made upon his contemporaries. These portraits give a fairly just idea of his lofty stature, broad shoulders, and large limbs, but the features are inadequately rendered in all of them. The proportions are probably correct, but the expression has been lost. The artists have been so anxious to render the philosopher, that they have forgotten the man. His expression, except on very solemn occasions, was never so grave as they have made it. His bright blue eye had nearly always a merry twinkle in it, and his broad mouth was ever ready to break into a smile. His nature was essentially joyous; and he dearly loved a good joke, a funny story, or a merry party of friends, in which his laugh was always the loudest, and his pleasure the keenest. Nor did he disdain the pleasures of the table; a good dinner, followed by a good bottle of port, was not without its charm for him, though it may be doubted whether he enjoyed these matters for their own sake so much as for the society they brought with them. He could not bear to be alone, and was not particular into what company he went, provided he could get good conversation, and plenty of it. He used to say that he liked to hear a dinner in ‘full cry’; and, if we may adopt his own simile without offence to the memory of one whom we love and revere, he was himself the leader of the pack. He could hardly be called a good talker; he was too fond of the sound of his own loud cheery voice, and engrossed the conversation too much. He would take up a subject started by somebody else, and handle it in a masterly fashion, as if he were in a lecture room, while the rest sat by and listened. He laid down the law, too, in a style that did not admit of reply. We remember an occasion when the conversation turned on Longfellow’s Golden Legend, then just published, and Whewell was asked to say what he thought of it. ‘I think it is a bad echo of a bad original, Goethe’s Faust,’ thundered out the great man; after which, of course, there was a dead silence. Again, he was no respecter of persons, nor was he too careful to observe the ordinary rules of politeness. If anybody said a silly thing, even if the person were a lady, and in her own house, he thought nothing of crushing her with ‘Madam, no one but a fool would have made that observation’; but his company was so delightful, his stores of information so varied and so vast, his readiness to communicate them so unusual, and his memory so retentive, that these eccentricities in ‘Rough Diamond,’ as a clever University jeu d’esprit called him, were readily forgiven. He was far too well aware of his own supremacy to be afraid of unbending; and years after he became Master of Trinity he has been seen to kneel down on the carpet to play with a Skye terrier. He was a special favourite with young people, especially with young ladies, from the heartiness with which he threw himself into their pursuits and pleasures, talked with them, romped with them, wrote verses and riddles and translated German poems for their amusement, and assisted approvingly at the musical parties which were the fashion when he was a young man. There were indeed several houses in Cambridge and its neighbourhood in which we should have ventured to say that he was ‘a tame cat,’ had there been anything feline in that rugged and vehement nature.

Those who wish to draw for themselves a life-like portrait of Whewell in his best days must take into account the fact that his health was always excellent. There is a legend that as a boy he was delicate; but, if this were ever the case, which we doubt, he put it aside with other childish things. When he came to man’s estate no rebellious liver ever troubled his repose, or made him look upon life with a jaundiced eye. It was his habit to sit up late; but, notwithstanding, he appeared regularly at morning chapel, then at 7 a.m., fresh and radiant, and ready for the day’s work. This vigour of body enabled him to appreciate everything with a keenness which age could not dull, nor the most poignant grief extinguish, except for very brief intervals. He thoroughly appreciated ‘the mere joy of living’; and whatever was going forward attracted him so powerfully that he was never satisfied until he had found out all about it. He went everywhere: to public ceremonials and exhibitions; to new plays, new music, new pictures; to London drawing-rooms and smart country houses; to quiet parsonages and canonical residences; to foreign cities and English cathedrals; always deriving the keenest enjoyment from what he saw, and delighting in new experiences because they were new. There was but one exception to the universality of his interests. When he was a resident Fellow of Trinity, it was the fashion for College Dons to dabble in politics, and more than one of his Trinity friends made their fortune by their Liberal opinions. He did not imitate their example. He always described himself as no politician. As a young man he seemed inclined to take a Liberal line, for he opposed a petition from the University against the Roman Catholic claims in 1821, and in the following year voted against ‘our dear, our Protestant Bankes’ for the same reason. But in those stormy days of the Reform Bill, when so many ancient friendships were destroyed, he took no decided line; and latterly he abstained from politics altogether. We do not mean that he shut his eyes to what was going forward in the world—far from it, but he seemed to consider that one Administration was as good as another, and provided no violent change was threatened, he left the destinies of the Empire to take care of themselves. As he grew older, his mind became engrossed by thoughts of the suffering which even the most glorious achievements must of necessity entail. The events of the Indian Mutiny, for instance, were followed by him with the closest interest; but he was more frequently heard to deplore the severity dealt out to the natives than to admire the heroism of their victims.

Whewell’s natural good health was no doubt maintained by his love of open air exercise. No matter how busy he was, or how bad the weather, he rarely missed his daily ride. On most afternoons he might be seen on his grey horse ‘Twilight,’ usually with his inseparable friend Dr Worsley, either galloping across country, or joining quieter parties along the roads. He was never a good rider, but a very bold one, as will be seen from the following story, the accuracy of which we once tested by reference to Sebright, the veteran huntsman of the Fitzwilliam hounds. Whewell was staying with Viscount Milton, we believe in 1828. One morning his host said to him at breakfast, ‘We are all going out hunting; what would you like to do?’ He replied, ‘I have never been out hunting, and I should like to go too.’ So he was mounted on a first-rate horse, well up to his weight, and told to keep close to the huntsman. Whewell did as he was bid, and followed him over everything. They had an unusually good run across a difficult country, in the course of which Sebright took an especially stout and high fence. Looking round to see what had become of the stranger, he found him at his side, safe and sound. ‘That, sir, was a rasper,’ he said. ‘I did not observe that it was anything more than ordinary,’ replied Whewell. So on they went, till at last his horse pulled up, quite exhausted, to Whewell’s great indignation, who exclaimed, ‘I thought a hunter never stopped.’

We are not presumptuous enough to suppose that we can add any new facts to those which have been already collected in the volumes before us; but we think that even after their publication there is room for a short essay, which shall bring into prominence certain points in Whewell’s academic career, and attempt to determine the value of what he did for science in general, and for his own College and University in particular. His life divides itself naturally into three periods of about equal length, the first extending from his birth in 1794 to his appointment as assistant-tutor of Trinity College in 1818, the second from 1818 to his appointment as Master in 1841, and the third from 1841 to his death in 1866.

Whewell came up to Cambridge at the beginning of the Michaelmas Term, 1812. Those who are familiar with the exciting spectacle presented by the splendid intellectual activity of the Cambridge of to-day—accommodating itself with flexibility and readiness to requirements the most diverse, appointing new teachers in departments of study the most unusual and the most remote on the bare chance of their services being required, flinging open its doors to all comers, regardless of sex, creed, or nationality, and thronged with students whose numbers are increasing year by year, eager to take advantage of the instruction which their elders are equally eager to supply them with—will find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the totally different state of things which existed at that time. Were we asked to express its characteristic by a single word, we should answer, dulness. It must be remembered that communication in those days was slow; news did not arrive until it was stale; travelling, especially for passengers, was expensive, so that, at least for the shorter vacations, many persons did not leave Cambridge at all; and some remained there during the whole year—we might say, in some cases, during their whole lives. For the same reasons strangers rarely visited the University. The same people dined and supped together day after day, with no novelty to diversify their lives or their conversation. No wonder that they became narrow, prejudiced, eccentric, or that their habits were tainted with the grosser vices which there was no public opinion to repudiate. The undergraduates, most of whom came from the upper classes, were few. In the fifteen years between 1800 and 1815 the yearly average of those who matriculated did not exceed 205: less than one-fourth of those who now present themselves^[2]. The only road to the Honour Degree was through the Mathematical Tripos. The amusements were as little varied as the studies. There was riding for those who could afford it; and a few boated and played cricket or tennis; but the majority contented themselves with a walk. With the undergraduates, as with their seniors, the habit of hard drinking was unfortunately still prevalent. But the great changes through which the country passed between 1815 and 1834 produced a totally different state of things. The old order changed; slowly and almost imperceptibly at first, but still it changed. As the wealth of the country increased, a new class of students presented themselves for education; ideas began to circulate with rapidity; old forms of procedure and examination were given up; academic society was purified from its coarseness and vulgarity, and lost much of its exclusiveness; new studies were admitted upon an all but equal footing with the old ones; and, lastly, the new political principles asserted themselves by gradually sweeping away, one after another, all restrictive enactments. This last change, however, was not consummated until 1871. The other changes with which what may be called modern Cambridge was inaugurated are thus enumerated with characteristic force by Professor Sedgwick in one of his ‘Letters to the Editor of the Leeds Mercury,’ written in 1836, with which he demolished that infamous slanderer of the University, Mr R. M. Beverley:

‘It is most strange that in a letter on the present state of Cambridge no notice should be taken of the noble institutions which have of late years risen up within it; of the glories of its Observatory; of the newly-chartered body, the Philosophical Society, organized among its resident members in the year 1819, and now known to the world of science by its “Transactions,” the records of many important original discoveries; of the new Collections in Natural History; of the magnificent new Press; of the new School and Museum of Comparative Anatomy; of the noble extension of the collegiate buildings, made at some inconvenience and much personal cost to the present Fellows, and entailing on them and their successors the weight of an enormous debt; of the general spirit of inquiry pervading the members of the academic body, young and old; of the eight or nine new courses of public lectures (established within the last twenty-five years) both on the applied sciences and the ancient languages; of the general activity of the professors, and of their correspondence with foreign establishments organized for objects like their own, whereby Cambridge is now, at least, an integral part of the vast republic of literature and science; of the crowded class at the lecture of Modern History [by Professor Smyth]; of the great knowledge of many of our younger members in modern languages; of the recent Professorship of Political Economy bestowed on a gentleman [Mr Pryme] who had been lecturing for years, and was a firm and known supporter of Liberal opinions.’

When Whewell came to the University these improvements had not been so much as thought of. He was himself to be the prime mover in bringing several of them about. It must be remembered, however, while we confess to a special enthusiasm for our hero, that he did not stand alone as the champion of intellectual development in the University. Indeed it will become evident as we proceed that he was not naturally a reformer. He had so strong a respect for existing institutions that he hesitated long before he could bring himself to sanction any change, no matter how self-evident or how salutary. As a young man, however, he found himself one of a large body of enthusiastic workers, who, while they differed widely, almost fundamentally, on the methods to be employed, were all animated by the same spirit, and stimulated one another to fresh exertions in the common cause. It was one of the most remarkable characteristics of the period of which Professor Sedgwick has sketched the results, that it was hardly more distinguished for the changes produced than for the men who brought them about.

But to return to the special subject of our essay. Of Whewell’s boyhood, school days, and undergraduateship, few details have been preserved. His father was a master carpenter, residing at Lancaster, where William, the eldest of his seven children, was born in 1794. His father is mentioned as a man of probity and intelligence; but his mother, whom he unfortunately lost when he was only eleven years old, appears to have been a woman of superior talents and considerable culture, who enriched the ‘Poet’s Corner’ of the weekly Lancaster Gazette with occasional contributions in verse. William was about to be apprenticed to his father, when his superior intelligence attracted the attention of Mr Rowley, curate of the parish and master of the grammar school. The father objected at first: ‘He knows more about parts of my business than I do,’ he said, ‘and has a special turn for it.’ However, after a week’s reflection, he yielded, mainly out of deference to Mr Rowley, who further offered to find the boy in books, and educate him free of expense. Of his school experiences, Professor Owen, who was one of his schoolfellows, has contributed some delightful reminiscences. After mentioning that he was a tall, ungainly youth, he adds:

‘The rate at which Whewell mastered both English grammar and Latin accidence was a marvel; and before the year was out he had moved upward into the class including my elder brother and a dozen boys of the same age. Then it was that the head-master, noting to them the ease with which Whewell mastered the exercises and lessons, raised the tale and standard. Out of school I remember remonstrances in this fashion: “Now, Whewell, if you say more than twenty lines of Virgil to-day, we’ll wallop you.” But that was easier said than done. I have seen him, with his back to the churchyard wall, flooring first one, then another, of the “walloppers,” and at last public opinion in the school interposed. “Any two of you may take Whewell in a fair stand-up fight, but we won’t have any more at him at once.” After the fate of the first pair, a second was not found willing. My mother thought “it was extremely ungrateful in that boy Whewell to have discoloured both eyes of her eldest so shockingly.” But Mr Rowley said, “Boys will be boys,” and he always let them fight it fairly out.’

In after years Whewell spoke of the good training he had received in arithmetic, geometry, and mensuration from Mr Rowley; but it is believed that his recollections of his first school were not wholly agreeable; and probably he was not sorry when he was removed to the grammar school at Heversham, in Westmoreland. This took place in 1810. The reason for it was that he might compete for an exhibition of 50l. per annum, at Trinity College, which he was so fortunate as to obtain. At his second school he paid great attention to classical studies, and practised versification in Greek and Latin.

In October 1812 he commenced residence at Trinity College as a sub-sizar. His first University distinction was the Chancellor’s gold medal for English Verse, the subject being ‘Boadicea.’ In after years he was fond of expressing the theory that ‘a prize-poem should be a prize-poem’: by which he probably meant that the subject should be treated in a conventional fashion, with no eccentric innovations of style or metre. It must be admitted that his own work conformed exactly to this standard. The poem was welcomed with profound admiration in the family circle at home; but his old master took a different view of the question. Professor Owen relates that Mr Rowley called one day at his mother’s house, and began as follows:

‘“I’ve sad news for you, Mrs Owen, to-day. I’ve just had a letter from Cambridge; that boy Whewell has ruined himself, he’ll never get his Wranglership now!” “Why, good gracious, Mr Rowley, what has Whewell been doing?” “Why, he has gone and got the Chancellor’s gold medal for some trumpery poem, ‘Boadicea,’ or something of that kind, when he ought to have been sticking to his mathematics. I give him up now. Taking after his poor mother, I suppose.”’

The letters which he wrote home give us some pleasant glimpses of his College life, which he evidently thoroughly enjoyed. For the first time in his life he had access to a good library—that of Trinity College—and he speaks of ‘an inconceivable desire to read all manner of books at once,’ adding that at that very moment there were two folios and six quartos of different works upon his table. The success which he afterwards achieved is a proof that he entered heartily into the studies of the place; and among his friends were men who were studious then, and afterwards became eminent. Among these we may mention Mr, afterwards Sir John, Herschel, Mr Richard Jones, Mr Julius Charles Hare, and Mr Charles Babbage. A correspondent of his, writing so late as 1841, recalls the ‘Sunday morning philosophical breakfasts,’ at which they used to meet in 1815; and there are indications in the letters of similar feasts of reason and flows of soul. It must, on the other hand, be admitted that a few indications of an opposite character may be produced. He admits, in a half-bantering, half-serious way, that he had laid himself open to the charge of idleness; and he describes the diversions of himself and his friends during the long vacation of 1815 as ‘dancing at country fairs, playing billiards, tuning beakers into musical glasses,’ and the like. It need be no matter of surprise that a young man of high spirits and strong bodily frame, brought up in the seclusion of Lancashire, should have taken the fullest advantage of the first opportunity which presented itself of appreciating the lighter and brighter side of existence. This, however, was all. Whewell knew perfectly well where to stop. No scandal ever attached itself to his name; and he ‘wore the white flower of a blameless life’ through a period when the customs prevalent in the University were such as are more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

He proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1816, when he was second Wrangler and second Smith’s Prize-man. On both occasions he was beaten by a Mr Jacob, of Caius College, who was his junior by two years. It is a Cambridge tradition that Mr Jacob’s success was a surprise to everybody, for he had intentionally affected to be an idle man, and showed himself on most days riding out in hunting costume, the truth being that he kept his books at a farm-house, where he pursued his studies in secrecy and quiet. He was a young man of the greatest promise; and it was expected that he would achieve a conspicuous success at the Bar. But his lungs were affected, and he died of consumption at an early age. As Mr Todhunter remarks, his fame rests mainly on the fact that he twice outstripped so formidable a competitor as the future Master of Trinity. Whewell mentions him as ‘a very pleasant as well as a very clever man,’ and adds, ‘I had as soon be beaten by him as by anybody else.’

The labours of reading for the degree over, Whewell had leisure to turn his studies in any direction whither his fancy led him. No doubt he fully appreciated the, to him, unusual position, for he tells his sister that few people could be ‘more tranquilly happy than your brother, in his green plaid dressing-gown, blue morocco slippers, and with a large book before him.’ The time had come, however, when he was to experience the first of the inevitable inconveniences of a College life. Two of his most intimate friends, Herschel and Jones, left Cambridge, and he bitterly deplores their loss. Indeed it probably needed all the attachment to the place, which he proclaims in the same letter, to prevent his following their example. He appears at one time to have thought seriously of going to the Bar. He began, however, to take pupils: an occupation which becomes a singularly absorbing one, especially when the tutor takes the interest in them which apparently he did. One of those with whom he spent the summer of 1818, in Wales, Mr Kenelm Digby, afterwards author of the Broadstone of Honour, who admits that he was so idle that his tutor would take no remuneration from him, has recorded that—

‘I had reason to regard Whewell as one of the most generous, open-hearted, disinterested, and noble-minded men that I ever knew. I remember circumstances that called for the exercise of each of those rare qualities, when they were met in a way that would now seem incredible, so fast does the world seem moving away from all ancient standards of goodness and moral grandeur.’

This testimony is important, if only for comparison with the far different feelings with which his more official pupils regarded him in after years. In these occupations he spent the two years succeeding his degree; for the amount of special work done for the Fellowship Examination was probably not great. He was elected Fellow in October 1817; and in the summer of the following year was made one of the assistant-tutors. With this appointment the first part of his University career ends, and the second begins.

His connexion with the educational staff of Trinity College, first as assistant-tutor, then as sole tutor, lasted for just twenty years. These were the most occupied of his busy life; and in justification of what we said at the outset of the multifarious nature of his occupations, we proceed to give a rapid chronological sketch of them. His career as an author began, in 1819, with an Elementary Treatise on Mechanics. It went through seven editions, in each of which, as Mr Todhunter says, ‘the subject was revolutionized rather than modified; and the preface to each expounded with characteristic energy the paramount merits of the last constitution framed.’ The value of the work was greatly impaired by these proceedings, for an author can hardly expect to retain the unwavering confidence of his readers while his own opinions are in constant fluctuation. In 1820 he was Moderator, and travelled abroad for the first time. In 1821 he was working at geology seriously, and took a geological tour in the Isle of Wight with Sedgwick, who had been made Woodwardian Professor three years before. Later in the year he explored the Lake Country, and was introduced to Mr Wordsworth. Their acquaintance subsequently ripened into a friendship, which appears in numerous letters, and notably in the dedication prefixed to the Elements of Morality. A Treatise on Dynamics was published in 1823, which was treated in much the same fashion as its fellow on Mechanics. The summer vacation was spent in a visit to Paris for the first time, and an architectural tour in Normandy with Mr Kenelm Digby. In 1824 he took a prominent part in the resistance to the Heads of Colleges in their attempt to nominate to the Professorship of Mineralogy; and later in the year he went again to Cumberland with Sedgwick, ‘rambling about the country, and examining the strata’; visiting Southey and Wordsworth; and, in the intervals of geology, seeing cathedrals and churches. In 1825, as the chair of Mineralogy was about to be vacated by Professor Henslow, promoted to that of Botany, Whewell announced himself a candidate; and by way of preparation spent three months in Germany, studying crystallography at the feet of Professor Mohs, of Freiburg: a subject on which he had already made communications to the Royal Society and to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. This was his first introduction to Germany, in whose language and literature he thenceforward took the greatest interest. He even modified his way of writing English in accordance with German custom, as is shown by the plentiful scattering of capitals through his sentences, and by a certain ponderosity of style which savours of German originals. The dissensions as to the mode of election to the Mineralogical chair caused it to remain vacant for three years; so that Whewell, about the choice of whom there never seems to have been any doubt, had no immediate opportunity of turning to account his newly-acquired knowledge. He therefore, with even more than characteristic energy, turned his attention to two most opposite subjects, Theology, and the Density of the Earth.

In the summer of 1826 he commenced a series of investigations on the latter subject at Dolcoath Mine, Cornwall, in conjunction with Mr Airy. The essential part of the process was to compare the time of vibration of a pendulum at the surface of the earth with the time of vibration of the same pendulum at a considerable depth below the surface. Unfortunately the experiments, which were renewed in 1828, failed to lead to any satisfactory result, partly through an error in the construction of the pendulum, partly through a singular fatality, by which, on both occasions, they were frustrated by a serious accident. The account he gives of himself, and of the way in which the researches were regarded by the Cornishmen, is too amusing not to be quoted. It is contained in a letter to his friend Lady Malcolm, and is dated ‘Underground Chamber, Dolcoath Mine, Camborne, Cornwall, June 10, 1826:

‘I venture to suppose that you never had a correspondent who at the time of writing was situated as your present one is. I am at this moment sitting in a small cavern deep in the recesses of the earth, separated by 1,200 feet of rock from the surface on which you mortals tread. I am close to a wooden partition which has been fixed here by human hands, through which I ever and anon look, by means of two telescopes, into a larger cavern. That larger den has got various strange-looking machines, illumined here and there by unseen lamps, among which is visible a clock with a face most unlike common clocks, and a brass bar which swings to and fro with a small but never-ceasing motion. I am clad in the garb of a miner, which is probably more dirty and scanty than anything you may have happened to see in the way of dress. The stillness of this subterranean solitude is interrupted by the noise, most strange to its walls, of the ticking of my clock, and the chirping of seven watches. But besides these sounds it has noises of its own which my ear catches now and then. A huge iron vessel is every quarter of an hour let down through the rock by a chain above a thousand feet long, and in its descent and ascent dashes itself against the sides of the pit with a violence and a din like thunder; and at intervals, louder and deeper still, I hear the heavy burst of an explosion when gunpowder has been used to rend the rock, which seems to pervade every part of the earth like the noise of a huge gong, and to shake the air within my prison. I have sat here for some hours, and shall sit five or six more, at the end of which time I shall climb up to the light of the sky in which you live, by about sixty ladders, which form the weary upward path from hence to your world. I ought not to omit, by way of completing the picturesque, that I have a barrel of porter close to my elbow, and a miner stretched on the granite at my feet, whose yawns at being kept here so many hours, watching my inscrutable proceedings, are most pathetic. This has been my situation and employment every day for some time, and will be so for some while longer, with the alternation of putting myself in a situation as much as possible similar, in a small hut on the surface of the earth. Is not this a curious way of spending one’s leisure time? I assure you I often think of Sir John’s favourite quotation from Leyden, “Slave of the dark and dirty mine! What vanity has brought thee here?” and sometimes doubt whether sunshine be not better than science.

‘If the object of my companion and myself had been to make a sensation, we must have been highly gratified by the impression which we have produced upon the good people in this country. There is no end to the number and oddity of their conjectures and stories about us. The most charitable of them take us to be fortune-tellers; but for the greater part we are suspected of more mischievous kinds of magic. A single loud, insulated, peal of thunder, which was heard the first Sunday after our arrival, was laid at our door; and a staff which we had occasion to plant at the top of the cliff, was reported to have the effect of sinking all unfortunate ships which sailed past.

‘I could tell you many more such histories; but I think this must be at least enough about myself, if I do not wish to make the quotation from Leyden particularly applicable.’

Whewell had been ordained priest on Trinity Sunday, 1826, and this circumstance had probably directed him to a more exact study of theology than he had previously attempted. The result was a course of four sermons before the University in February 1827. The subject of these, which have never been printed, may be described as the ‘Relation of Human to Divine Knowledge.’ They attracted considerable attention when delivered; and it was even suggested that the author ought to devote himself to theology as a profession, and try to obtain one of the Divinity Professorships; but the advice was not taken. A theological tone may, however, be observed in most of his scientific works; he loved to point out analogies between scientific and moral truths, and to show that there was no real antagonism between science and revealed religion.

In 1828 the new Professor of Mineralogy entered upon his functions, and after his manner rushed into print with an Essay on Mineralogical Classification and Nomenclature, in which there is much novelty of definition and arrangement. He was conscious that he had been somewhat precipitate; for he writes to his friend, Mr Jones, who was trying to make up his mind on certain problems of political economy, and declined to print until he had done so:

‘I avoid all your anxieties about authorship by playing for lower stakes of labour and reputation. While you work for years in the elaboration of slowly-growing ideas, I take the first buds of thought and make a nosegay of them without trying what patience and labour might do in ripening and perfecting them^[3].’

At the beginning of the year 1830 there appeared an anonymous publication entitled Architectural Notes on German Churches, with Remarks on the Origin of Gothic Architecture. The author need not have tried to conceal his name; in this, as in other similar attempts, his style betrayed his identity at once. The work went through three editions, in each of which it was characteristically altered and enlarged, so that what had appeared as an essay of 118 pages in 1830, was transformed into a work of 348 pages in 1842. Architecture had been from the first one of Whewell’s favourite studies. In a letter to his sister in 1818 he speaks of a visit to Lichfield and Chester for the purpose of studying their cathedrals; many of his subsequent tours were undertaken for similar objects; and his numerous note-books and sketch-books (for he was no mean draughtsman) contain ample evidence of the pains he bestowed on perfecting himself in architectural details. The theory, or ‘ground-idea,’ as his favourite Germans would have called it, which he puts forward, is, that the pointed arch, even if it was really introduced from the East, which he evidently doubts, was improved and developed through the system of vaulting, which the Gothic builders learnt from the Romans. This theory has not been generally accepted; but the mere statement of it may have been of value, as the author suggests, ‘in the way of bringing into view relations and connexions which really exerted a powerful influence on the progress of architecture’; and the sketch of the differences between the classical and the Gothic styles is certainly extremely good. It has been sometimes suggested that the whole book was written in a spirit of rivalry to the Remarks on the Architecture of the Middle Ages, by Professor Willis. A glance at the dates of publication is enough to refute this view; for the work of Professor Willis was published in 1835, the first edition of Dr Whewell’s in 1830. In the course of this summer he made an architectural tour with Mr Rickman in Devon and Cornwall; and, as if in order that his occupations might be as sharply contrasted as possible, investigated also the geology of the neighbourhood of Bath.

In 1831 we find Whewell reviewing three remarkable books: Herschel’s Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy; Lyell’s Principles of Geology, vol. i.; and Jones On the Distribution of Wealth. As Mr Todhunter remarks, scarcely any person but himself could have ventured on such a task. These reviews are not merely critical; they contain much of the author’s own speculations, much that went beyond the interest of the moment, and might be considered to possess a permanent value. Herschel was delighted with his own share. He writes to Whewell, thanking him for ‘the splendid review,’ and declaring that he ‘should have envied the author of any work, if a stranger, which could give occasion for such a review.’ Lyell wrote in much the same strain; and we are rather surprised that he did so; for his reviewer not only stubbornly refused to accept his theory of uniformity of action, in opposition to the cataclysmic views of the Huttonians, but treated the whole question in a spirit of good-humoured banter, in which even Herschel thought that he had gone too far. The article on his friend Mr Jones’ work—which appeared in the British Critic—is rather an exposition of his views, which were original, than a criticism. It was Whewell’s first appearance in print on any question of political economy, except a short memoir in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, called a Mathematical Exposition of some Doctrines of Political Economy; and therefore marks a period when he had added yet one more science to those which he had already mastered. In this year he gave much time to a controversy which was agitating the University on the question of the best plans to be adopted for a new Public Library; and contributed a bulky pamphlet to the literature of the subject, in opposition to his friend Mr Peacock. The whole question is a very interesting one; but our space will not allow us to do more than mention it, as another instance of the diversity of Whewell’s interests.

The next year (1832) was even a busier one than its predecessor; he was occupied in revising some of his mathematical text-books; in drawing up a Report on Mineralogy for the British Association, described as ‘an example of the unrivalled power with which he mastered a subject with which his previous studies had had but little connexion’; and in writing one of the Bridgewater Treatises, a work which, with most men, would have been enough to occupy them fully during the whole of the three years which had elapsed since the President of the Royal Society had selected him as one of the eight writers who should carry out the intentions of the Earl of Bridgewater. The subject of his treatise is Astronomy and General Physics considered with reference to Natural Theology. It is one of Whewell’s most thoughtful and justly celebrated works, on which he must have bestowed much time. During the intervals, however, of its composition, he had not only written the reviews we have mentioned, and others also, to which we can only allude, but had commenced those researches on the Tides, which are embodied in no fewer than fourteen memoirs in the Transactions of the Royal Society, and for which he afterwards received the Royal Medal. No wonder that even he began to feel overworked, and resigned the Professorship of Mineralogy early in the year. He writes to his friend Mr Jones, whom he was always striving to inspire with some of his own restless activity of thought and composition:

‘I am plunging into term-work, hurried and distracted as usual; the only comfort is the daily perception of what I have gained by giving up the Professorship. If I can work myself free so as to have a little command of my own time, I think I shall be wiser in future than to mortgage it so far. Quiet reflexion is as necessary as fresh air, and I can scarcely get a breath of it.’

His friend must have smiled as he read this, for he probably knew what such resolutions were worth. Whewell might have said, with Lord Byron—

for, notwithstanding these promises and many others like them, we shall find that in future years he took upon himself a greater rather than a less amount of work, which he did not merely get through in a perfunctory fashion, but discharged with a thoroughness as rare as it is marvellous.

The Bridgewater Treatise appeared in 1833, a year in which he delivered an address to the British Association, at its meeting at Cambridge; contributed a paper On the Use of Definitions to the Philological Museum; and increased his stock of architectural and geological knowledge by tours with Messrs Rickman, Sedgwick, and Airy. He was now generally recognized as the first authority on scientific language; and we find Professor Faraday deferring to him on the nomenclature of electricity. In 1834 he invented an anemometer, or instrument for measuring the force and direction of the wind; it was employed for some time at York, by Professor Phillips, but has since been superseded by more convenient contrivances.

The real meaning of his longing for leisure soon became manifest. In July 1834 he expounds to his friend Mr Jones the plan of the History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, which he was prosecuting vigorously. This great work occupied him, almost to the exclusion of other matters, for the whole of 1835 and 1836. We say almost, because, even at this time, with his usual habit of taking up some new subject just before he had completed an extensive labour on an old one, he was beginning to study systematic morality, and in 1835 published a preface to Sir James Mackintosh’s Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, a subject which he further considered in 1837, when he preached before the University Four Sermons on the Foundation of Morals. In this year he succeeded Mr Lyell as President of the Geological Society, an office which must have been given to him rather in recognition of his general scientific attainments and the work he had done in the kindred science of mineralogy, than on account of any special publications on geology. He seems to have made an excellent President. Sir Charles Lyell^[4] speaks of him with enthusiasm, and points out his sacrifices of time, not only in attending the meetings of the Society, but in supervising the details of its organization. The extra work which the office involved is thus described in a letter to his sister, dated November 18, 1837:

‘My old complaint of being overwhelmed with business, especially at this time of year, is at present, I think, rather more severe than ever. For, besides all my usual employments, I have to go to London two days every fortnight as President of the Geological Society, and am printing a book which I have not yet written, so that I am obliged often to run as fast as I can to avoid the printers riding over me, so close are they at my heels. I am, in addition to all this, preaching a course of sermons before the University; but this last employment, though it takes time and thought, rather sobers and harmonizes my other occupations than adds anything to my distraction.’

In this same year (1837) the History of the Inductive Sciences was published, to be followed in less than three years by the Philosophy of the same. This encyclopÆdic publication—for the two books must be considered together—marks the conclusion of that part of his life which had been devoted, in the main, to pure science; and it gives the reason for his having thrown himself into occupations so diverse. It was not his habit to write on that which he had not completely mastered; and he therefore thought, wrote, and published on most of the separate sciences while tracing their history and developing their philosophy.

In this rapid sketch we have not been able to do more than indicate the principal works which Whewell had had in hand. It must not be forgotten that at the same time he was engaged in a large and ever-increasing correspondence; writing letters—which, as he used to say himself, ought to be ‘postworthy’—not merely to scientific men, as we know from Mr Todhunter’s book, but—as we now know from Mrs Stair Douglas—to his sisters and other ladies, on all sorts of subjects which he thought would interest them. Then he was a wide reader, as is proved by notes he made on the books which he had read from 1817 to 1830: ‘books in almost all the languages of Europe; histories of all countries, ancient or modern; treatises on all sciences, moral and physical. Among the notes is an epitome of Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft, a work which exercised a marked influence on all his speculations in mental philosophy.’ Whatever he read, he read thoroughly. Mr Todhunter illustrates this by a story given on the authority of one of his oldest friends. He was found reading Henry Taylor’s Philip van Artevelde, which then had just appeared. Not content with the poem alone, however, he had Froissart by his side, and was carefully comparing the modern drama with the ancient chronicle. Lastly—and we put the subject we are now about to mention last, not because it was least, but because it was, or ought to have been, the most important of all his occupations—he held the office of tutor of one of the three sides, as they were called, into which Trinity College was then divided, first alone, and next in conjunction with Mr Perry, from 1823 to 1838.

At that time the College was far smaller than it is at present, and a tutor was able, if he chose, to see much more of his pupils, to form some appreciation of their tastes and capacities, and personally to direct their studies. A man who combines the varied qualities which a thoroughly good tutor ought to possess is not readily found. It is a question of natural fitness rather than of training. In the first place, he must be content to forego all other occupations, and to be at the beck and call of his pupils and their parents whenever they may choose to come to him. Secondly, he must never forget that the dull, the idle, and the vicious demand even more care and time than the clever and the industrious. It may seem almost superfluous to mention that nothing which concerns his pupils must be beneath his notice. Petty details which concern their daily life, their rooms, their bills, their domestic relations, their amusements, have all to be referred to the tutor; and the most trivial of these may not seldom be of the greatest importance in giving occasion for exercising influence or administering advice. We are sorry to have to admit that Whewell was hardly so successful as he ought to have been in discharging these arduous duties. The period of his tutorship was, as we have shown, precisely that during which he was most occupied with his private studies; he threw his energies into them, and disposed of his College work in a perfunctory fashion. His letters are full of such passages as: ‘I have got an infinitude of that trifling men call business on my hands’; ‘During the last term I have been almost too busy either to write or read. I took upon myself a number of employments which ate up almost every moment of the day’; and the like; and his delight at having transferred the financial part of the work to his colleague Mr Perry, in 1833, was unbounded. The result was inevitable; he could not give the requisite time to his pupils, and, in fact, hardly knew some of them by sight. A story used to be current about him which is so amusing that we think it will bear repeating. We do not vouch for its accuracy; but we think that it would hardly have passed current had it not been felt to be applicable. One day he gave his servant a list of names of certain of his pupils whom he wished to see at a wine-party after Hall, a form of entertainment then much in fashion. Among the names was that of an undergraduate who had died some weeks before. ‘Mr Smith, sir; why he died last term, sir!’ objected the man. ‘You ought to tell me when my pupils die,’ replied the tutor sternly; and Whewell could be stern when he was vexed. Again, his natural roughness of manner was regarded by the undergraduates as indicating want of sympathy. They thought he wanted to get rid of them and their affairs as quickly as possible. Those who understood him better knew that he was really a warm-hearted friend; and we have seen that with his private pupils he had been exceedingly popular; but those who came only occasionally into contact with him regarded him with fear, not with affection. On the other hand, he was inflexibly just, whatever gossip or malevolence may have urged to the contrary. He had no favourites. No influence of any kind could make him swerve from the lofty standard of right which he had prescribed for himself.

We left Whewell completing the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences; and for the future we shall find him turning his attention exclusively—so far as he could be said to do anything exclusively—to Moral Philosophy. In 1838 he was elected to the Knightbridge Professorship, founded in 1677 by the Rev. John Knightbridge, who directed his Professor of ‘Moral Theology or Casuistical Divinity,’ as he termed it, to read five lectures in the Public Schools in every term, and, at the end of it, to deliver them, fairly written out, to the Vice-Chancellor. Various pains and penalties were enjoined against those who failed to perform these duties; but, notwithstanding, the office had remained a sinecure for more than a century; indeed we are doubtful whether it had ever been anything else. The suggestion that Whewell should become a candidate for it was made by his old friend, Dr Worsley, Master of Downing, who was Vice-Chancellor in that year, and, by virtue of his office, one of the electors. Whewell determined to inaugurate a new era, and at once commenced a course of lectures, which were regularly continued in subsequent years. We have seen that he had prepared himself for these pursuits by previous studies; and his letters show that he had made up his mind to devote himself to them for some years to come. In 1845 he produced his Elements of Morality, wherein the subject is treated systematically; and subsequently he wrote, or edited, works devoted to special parts of it, as Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England; Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis; and the Platonic Dialogues for English Readers. The permanent influence which Grotius exercised upon his mind is marked by his munificent foundation of a Professorship and Scholarships in International Law, in connexion with two additional courts for Trinity College, one of which was built during his life-time, while for the other funds were provided by his Will. The most sober-minded of men may sometimes be a visionary; and the motto Paci sacrum, which Whewell placed on the western faÇade of his new buildings, would seem to prove that he seriously believed that his foundation would put an end to war, and inaugurate ‘a federation of the world.’

As time went on, and Whewell approached his fiftieth year, he began to feel that ‘College rooms are no home for declining years.’ His friends were leaving, or had left; he did not make new ones; and he was beginning to lead a life of loneliness which was very oppressive to him. In 1840 he thought seriously of taking a College living, but his friend Mr Hare dissuaded him; and the letters that passed between them on this subject are among the most interesting in Mrs Stair Douglas’ volume. In 1841 he made up his mind to settle in Cambridge as a married man, with his Professorship and his ethical studies as an employment. The lady of his choice was Miss Cordelia Marshall. They were married on October 12, 1841, and on the very same day, Dr Wordsworth, Master of Trinity, wrote to him at Coniston, where he was spending his honeymoon, announcing his intention of resigning, ‘in the earnest desire, hope, and trust, that you may be, and will be, my successor.’ The news, which seems to have been quite unexpected, spread rapidly among the small circle of Whewell’s intimate friends; and succeeding posts brought letters from Dr Worsley and others, urging him ‘not to linger in his hymeneal Elysium,’ but to go up to London at once, and solicit the office from the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. Dr Whewell describes himself as ‘vehemently disturbed’; most probably he was unwilling to comply with what seems to us to have been extraordinary advice. He did comply, however, and went to London, where he found a letter from Sir Robert, offering him the Mastership. It is pleasant to be able to record that the offer was made spontaneously, before any solicitations had reached the Minister. Whewell accepted it on October 18; had an interview with Sir Robert on the 19th; returned to Coniston by the night mail; and on the 23rd (according to Mr Todhunter) had sufficiently recovered from his excitement to sit down to compose the first lecture of a new course on Moral Philosophy.

The appointment was felt to be a good one, though it must be admitted that there were dissentient voices. It was notorious that Dr Wordsworth had resigned soon after the fall of Lord Melbourne’s administration, in order to prevent the election of either Dean Peacock or Professor Sedgwick, both of whom were very popular with the Fellows. The feeling in College, therefore, was rather against the new Master than with him. Nor was he personally popular. We now know, from the letters which, in reply to congratulations, he wrote to Lord Lyttelton, Bishop Thirlwall, Mr Hare, and others, how diffident he was of his fitness for the office, and how anxious to discharge its high duties becomingly. Mr Hare had evidently been giving advice with some freedom, as was his wont, for Whewell replies:

‘I perceive and feel the value of the advice you give me, and I have no wish, I think, either to deny or to defend the failings you point out. In a person holding so eminent a station as mine will be, everything impatient and overbearing is of course quite out of place; and though it may cost me some effort, my conviction of this truth is so strong that I think it cannot easily lose its hold. As to my love of disputation, I do not deny that it has been a great amusement to me; but I find it to be so little of an amusement to others that I should have to lay down my logical cudgels for the sake of good manners alone.’

The writer of these sentences was far too straightforward not to have meant every word that he wrote; and we feel sure that he tried to carry out his good intentions. We are compelled, however, to admit that he failed. He was impatient and he was overbearing; or he was thought to be so, which, so far as his success as a Master went, came to the same thing. He had lived so long as a bachelor among bachelors—giving and receiving thrusts in argument, like a pugilist in a fair fight—that he had become somewhat pachydermatous. It is probable, too, that he was quite ignorant of the weight of his own blows. He forgot those he received, and expected his antagonist to have an equally short memory. Again, the high view which he took of his position as Master laid him open to the charge of arrogance. We believe the true explanation to be that he was too conscientious, if such a phrase be admissible; too inflexible in exacting from others the same strict obedience to College rules which he imposed upon himself. There are two ways, however, of doing most things; and he was unlucky in nearly always choosing the wrong one. For instance, his hospitality was boundless; whenever strangers came to Cambridge, they were entertained at Trinity Lodge; and, besides, there were weekly parties at which the residents were received. The rooms are spacious, and the welcome was intended to be a warm one; but the parties were not successful. Even at those social gatherings he never forgot that he was Master; compelling all his guests to come in their gowns, and those who came only after dinner to wear them during the entire evening. Then an idea became current that no undergraduate might sit down. So far as this notion was not wholly erroneous, it was based on the evident fact that the great drawing-room, large as it is, could not contain more than a very limited number of guests, supposing them all to sit; and that the undergraduates were obviously those who ought to stand. A strong feeling against anybody, however, resembles a popular panic; argument is powerless against it; and the victim of it must be content to wait until his persecutors are weary with fault-finding. In Dr Whewell’s case it seemed to matter very little what he did, or what he left undone; he was sure to give offence. The inscription commemorating himself on the restored oriel window of the Lodge^[5]; the motto, Lampada tradam, which he adopted for his arms; his differences with Her Majesty’s judges about their entertainment at the Lodge; his attempts to stop the disorderly interruptions of undergraduates in the Senate House; and a hundred other similar matters, were all made occasions for unfavourable comment both in and out of College. The comic literature of the day not unfrequently alluded to him as the type of the College Don and the University Snob; and in 1847, when he actively promoted the election of the Prince Consort as Chancellor, a letter in the Times newspaper, signed ‘Junius,’ informed Prince Albert that he had been made ‘the victim chiefly of one man of notoriously turbulent character and habits. Ask how HE is received by the University whenever he appears,’ &c.; and a second letter, signed ‘Anti-Junius,’ affecting to reply to these aspersions, described in ironical language, with infinite humour, ‘the retiring modesty, the unfeigned humility, the genuine courtesy’ of the ‘honoured and beloved Whewell^[6].’ We are happy to be able to say that he outlived much of this obloquy; his temper grew gradually softer—a change due partly to age, partly to the genial influence of both his wives; and before the end came he had achieved respect, if not popularity. The notion that he was arrogant and self-asserting may still be traced in the epigrams to which the essay on The Plurality of Worlds gave occasion. Sir Francis Doyle wrote:

Even better than this was the remark that ‘Whewell thinks himself a fraction of the universe, and wishes to make the denominator as small as possible.’ These, however, were harmless sallies, at which he was probably as much amused as any one.

No one who knew Whewell well can avoid admitting, as we have done, that there was much in his manner and conduct that might with advantage have been different. But what we wish to maintain is that these defects were not essential to his character: that they arose either from a too precise adherence to views that were in themselves good and noble, or from a certain vehemence and impulsiveness that swept him away in spite of himself, and landed him in difficulties over which he had to repent at leisure. And in this place let us draw attention to one of his most pleasing traits—his generosity. We do not merely refer to the numerous cases of distress which he alleviated, delicately and secretly, but to the magnanimity of temperament with which he treated those from whom he had differed, or whose conduct he had condemned. He had no false notions of dignity. If he felt that he had said what he had better have left unsaid, or overstepped the proper limits of argument, he would sooth the bruised and battered victims of his sledgehammer with some such words as these: ‘I am afraid that I was hasty the other day in what I said to you. I am very sorry.’ He never bore a grudge, or betrayed remembrance of a fault, or repeated a word of scandal. There was nothing small or underhand about him. He would oppose a measure of which he disapproved, fairly and openly, by all legitimate expedients; but, when beaten, he cordially accepted the situation, and never alluded to the subject again.

His conduct at the contested election for a University Representative in 1856 affords a good illustration of what we have here advanced. The candidates were Mr Walpole and Mr Denman; and it was decided, after conference with their rival committees, that the poll should extend over five days, on four of which votes were to be taken in the Public Schools from half-past seven to half-past eight in the evening, in addition to the usual hours in the Senate House, namely, from ten to four. The proceedings excited an unusual interest among the undergraduates, who on the first morning occupied the galleries of the Senate House in force, and made such a noise that the University officers could not hear each others’ voices, and the business was transacted in dumb show. In consequence they represented to the Vice-Chancellor that they could not do their work unless he ‘took effectual means for the prevention of this inconvenience.’ Whewell hated nothing so much as insubordination, and had on former occasions addressed himself to the repression of this particular form of it. It is therefore probable that he was not indisposed to take the only step that, under the circumstances, seemed likely to be effectual, namely, to exclude the undergraduates from the Senate House for the rest of the days of polling. On the second and third days peace reigned within the building, but, when the Vice-Chancellor appeared outside, he was confronted by a howling mob, through which he had to make his way as best he could. He was advised to go by the back way; but, with characteristic pluck, he rejected this counsel, and went out and came in by the front gate of his College. A few Masters of Arts acted as a body-guard; but further protection was thought necessary, and on the third afternoon the University beheld the extraordinary spectacle of the Vice-Chancellor proceeding along Trinity Street with a prize-fighter on each side of him. On the evening of that day Mr Denman withdrew from the contest, a step which probably averted a serious riot. When the excitement had subsided a little Whewell drew up a printed statement, which, though marked Private, is in fact an address to the undergraduate members of the University. He points out the necessity for acting as he had done, both as regards the business in hand and because it was his duty to enforce proper behaviour in a public place as a part of education. He concludes with the following passage:

‘I the more confidently believe that the majority of the Undergraduates have a due self-respect, and a due respect for just authority temperately exercised, because I have ever found it so, both as Master of a College, and as Vice-Chancellor. One of the happiest recollections of my life is that of a great occasion in my former Vice-Chancellorship^[7], when I had need to ask for great orderliness and considerable self-denial on the part of the Undergraduates. This demand they responded to with a dignified and sweet-tempered obedience which endeared them to me then, as many good qualities which I have seen in successive generations of students have endeared them to me since. And I will not easily give up my trust that now, as then, the better natures will control and refine the baser, and that it will be no longer necessary to put any constraint upon the admission of Undergraduates to the Galleries of the Senate-house.’

After the poll had been declared the Proctors brought him a list of the rioters. He said, ‘The election is over, they will not do it again,’ and threw the record into the fire. Not long afterwards he went, as was his frequent custom, to a concert of the University Musical Society. The undergraduates present rose and cheered him. Whewell was so much affected, that he burst into tears, and sat for some time with his face hidden in the folds of his gown.

Those who recollect Whewell, or even those who know him only by his portraits, will smile incredulously at an assertion we are about to make. But it is true, no matter how severely it may be criticised. Whewell was, in reality, an extremely humble-minded man, diffident of himself, and sure of his position only when he had the approval of his conscience for what he was doing. Then he went forward, regardless of what might bar his passage, and too often regardless also of those who chanced to differ from him. The few who were admitted to the inner circle of his friendship alone knew that he really was what his enemies called him in sarcastic mockery, modest and retiring. If he appeared to be, as one virulent pamphlet said he was, an ‘imperious bully^[8],’ the manner which justified such a designation was manner only, and due not to arrogance but to nervousness. He disliked praise, even from his best friends, if he thought that it was not exactly merited. For instance, when Archdeacon Hare spoke enthusiastically of his condemnation of ‘Utilitarian Ethics’ in the Sermons on the Foundation of Morals, and exclaimed: ‘May the mind which has compast the whole circle of physical science find a lasting home, and erect a still nobler edifice, in this higher region! May he be enabled to let his light shine before the students of our University, that they may see the truth he utters^[9],’ Whewell requested that the passage might be altered in a new edition. He wrote (26 February, 1841):

‘You have mentioned me in a manner which I am obliged to say is so extremely erroneous that it distresses me. The character which you have given of me is as far as possible from that which I deserve. You know, I think, that I am very ignorant in all the matters with which you are best acquainted, and the case is much the same in all others. I was always very ignorant, and am now more and more oppressed by the consciousness of being so. To know much about many things is what I never aspired at, and certainly have not succeeded in. If you had called me a persevering framer of systems, or had said that in architecture, as in some other matters, by trying to catch the principle of the system, I had sometimes been able to judge right of details, I should have recognised some likeness to myself; but what you have said only makes me ashamed. You will perhaps laugh at my earnestness about this matter, for I am in earnest; but consider how you would like praise which you felt to be the opposite of what you were, and not even like what you had tried to be^[10].’

It would be unbecoming to intrude domestic matters into an essay like the present, in which we have proposed to ourselves a different object; but we cannot wholly omit to draw attention to the painful, but deeply interesting, chapters in which Mrs Stair Douglas describes her uncle’s grief at the loss of his first wife in 1855, and of his second wife in 1865. His strong nature had recovered after a time from the first of these terrible shocks, under which he had wisely distracted his mind by the composition of his essay on The Plurality of Worlds, and by again accepting the Vice-Chancellorship. The second, however, fell upon him with even greater severity. He was ten years older, and therefore less able to bear up against it. Lady Affleck died a little before midnight on Saturday, April 1, 1865; and her heart-broken husband, true to his theory that the chapel service ought to be regarded as family prayers, appeared in his place at the early service on Sunday morning, not fearing to commit to the sympathies of his College ‘the saddest of all sights, an old man’s bereavement, and a strong man’s tears^[11].’ We can still recall the look of intense sorrow on his face; a look which, though he tried to rouse himself, and pursue his usual avocations, never completely wore off. He survived her for rather less than a year, dying on March 6, 1866, from injuries received from a fall from his horse on February 24 previous. It was at first hoped that these, like those he had received on many similar occasions, for he used to say that he had measured the depth of every ditch in Cambridgeshire by falling into it, were not serious; but the brain had sustained an injury, and he gradually sank. His last thoughts were for the College. On the very last morning he signified his wish that the windows of his bedroom might be opened wide, that he might see the sun shine on the Great Court, and he smiled as he was reminded that he used to say that the sky never looked so blue as when framed by its walls and turrets. Among the numerous tributes to his memory which then appeared, none we think are more appropriate than the following lines, the authorship of which we believe we are right in ascribing to the late Mr Tom Taylor^[12]:

We have not thought it necessary to go through the events of Whewell’s Mastership in order, because progressive development of thought and occupation had by that time ended, and his efforts were chiefly directed towards establishing in the University the changes which his previous studies had led him to regard as necessary, and which, from the vantage-ground of that influential position, he was enabled to enforce. In his own College, so far as its education was concerned, he had little to do except to maintain the high standard which already existed. As tutor he had been successful in increasing the importance of the paper of questions in Philosophy in the Fellowship Examination; and subsequently he had introduced his Elements of Morality, his preface to Mackintosh’s Ethical Philosophy, and his edition of Butler’s Three Sermons into the examination at the end of the Michaelmas Term. None, however, of those fundamental measures which have achieved for Trinity College its present position of pre-eminence will in the future be associated with his name, unless the abolition of the Westminster Scholars be thought sufficiently important to be classed in this category. On the contrary, it is remarkable what slight influence he exerted on the College while Master. He saw but little of any of the Fellows, and became intimate with none. In theory he was a despot, but in practice he deferred to the College officers; and, with the exception of certain domestic matters, such as granting leave to studious undergraduates to live in College during the Long Vacation, and the formation of a cricket-ground for the use of the College, to which he and Lady Affleck both contributed largely, he originated nothing. As regards the constitution of the College, he was strongly opposed to change. The so-called Reform of the Statutes in 1842 amounted to nothing more than the excision of certain obsolete usages, and the accommodation in some few other points of the written law to the usual practice of the College. The proposals for a more thorough reform brought forward by certain of the Fellows in 1856, when called together in accordance with the Act of Parliament passed in that year, met with his vehement disapproval. It was a mental defect with him that he could never be brought to see that others had as much right as himself to hold special views. If he saw no defect in a statute or a practice, no one else had any right to see one. Here is a specimen of the language he used respecting the junior Fellows, all, it must be remembered, men of some distinction, whom he himself had had a hand in electing:

‘It is a very sad evening of my College life, to have the College pulled in pieces and ruined by a set of schoolboys. It is very nearly that kind of work. The Act of Parliament gives all our Fellows equal weight for certain purposes, and the younger part of them all vote the same way, and against the Seniors. Several of these juveniles are really boys, several others only Bachelors of Arts, so we have crazy work, as I think it^[13].’

As regards the University, as distinct from the College, he deserves recognition as having effected important educational changes. These range over the whole of his life, commencing with the novelties which he introduced, in conjunction with Herschel, Peacock, and Babbage, into the study of mathematics, so early as 1819. It was his constant endeavour, whatever office he held—whether Moderator, Examiner, or College lecturer—to keep the improvement and development of the Mathematical Tripos constantly before the University. But, before we enumerate the special improvements or developments with which he may be credited, let us consider what was his leading idea. He held that every man who was worth educating at all, had within him various faculties, such as the mathematical, the philological, the critical, the poetical, and the like; and that the truly liberal education was that which would develop all of these, some more, some less, according to the individual nature. A devotion to ‘favourite and selected pursuits’ was a proof, according to him, of ‘effeminacy of mind.’ We are not sure that he would have been prepared to introduce one or more classical papers into the Mathematical Tripos, though he held that a mere mathematician was not an educated man; but he was emphatic in wishing to preserve the provisions by which classical men were obliged to pass certain mathematical examinations. He did not want ‘much mathematics’ from them, he said, writing to Archdeacon Hare in 1842; ‘but a man who either cannot or will not understand Euclid, is a man whom we lose nothing by not keeping among us.’ He was no friend to examinations. He ‘repudiated emulation as the sole spring of action in our education,’ but did not see his way to reducing it. It was probably this feeling that made him object to private tuition so strongly as he always did. In opposition to private tutors, he wished to increase attendance at Professors’ lectures; and succeeded in ‘connecting them with examinations,’ as he called it; in other words, in making attendance at them compulsory for precisely those men who were least capable of deriving benefit from the highest teaching which the University can give, namely, the candidates for the Ordinary Degree.

The first definite novelty in the way of public examinations which he promoted was the examination in Divinity called, when first established, the Voluntary Theological Examination. Whewell was a member of the Syndicate which recommended it, in March, 1842; and subsequently, he took a great interest in making it a success. As Vice-Chancellor, he brought it under the direct notice of the Bishops. Subsequently, in 1845, he advocated, in his essay Of a Liberal Education in General, the establishment of ‘a General Tripos including the Inductive Sciences, or those which it was thought right by the University to group together for such a purpose.’ The basis of University education was still to be the Mathematical Tripos; but, after a student had been declared a Junior Optime, he was free to choose his future career. He might become a candidate either for the Classical Tripos, or for the suggested new Tripos, or for any other Tripos that the University should subsequently decide to establish. With these views it was natural that Whewell should be in favour of the establishment of a Moral Sciences Tripos (to include History and Law), and of a Natural Sciences Tripos; and in consequence we find him not only a member of the Syndicate which suggested them, but urging their acceptance upon the Senate (1848). Further, he offered two prizes of £15 each, so long as he was Professor, to be given annually to the two students who shewed the greatest proficiency in the former examination. It is worth noticing that he did not insist upon a candidate becoming a Junior Optime before presenting himself for either of these new Triposes, but was satisfied with the Ordinary Degree. He wished to encourage, by all reasonable facilities, the competition for Honours in them; but when the Senate (in 1849) threw open the Classical Tripos to those who had obtained a first class in the examination for the Ordinary Degree, he deplored it as a retrograde step. Before many years, however, had passed, he had modified his views to such an extent that he could sign (in 1854) a Report which began by stating ‘that much advantage would result from extending to other main departments of study, generally comprehended under the name of Arts, the system which is at present established in the University with regard to Candidates for Honours in the Mathematical Tripos’; and proceeded to advocate the establishment of a Theological Tripos, and the concession, with reference to the Classical Tripos, the Moral Sciences Tripos, and the Natural Sciences Tripos, that in and after 1857 students who obtained Honours in them should be entitled to admission to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. We may therefore claim Whewell as one of the founders of the modern system of University education.

Whewell’s wish to develop Professorial tuition has been already alluded to. It may be doubted if he would have been so earnest on the subject had he foreseen the development of teaching by the University as opposed to teaching by the colleges, which a large increase in the number of Professors was certain to bring about. So far back as 1828, he had brought before the University the want of proper lecture-rooms and museums; and, as a matter of course, he promoted the erection of the present museums in 1863. We are justified, therefore, in claiming for him no inconsiderable share in that development of natural science which is one of the glories of Cambridge; and when we see the crowds which throng the classes of the scientific professors, lecturers, and demonstrators, we often wish that he could have been spared a few years longer to enter into the fruit of his labours.

As regards the constitution of the University he earnestly deprecated the interference of a Commission. He held that ‘University reformers should endeavour to reform by efforts within the body, and not by calling in the stranger.’ He therefore worked very hard as a member of what was called the ‘Statutes Revision Syndicate,’ first appointed in 1849, and continued in subsequent years. His views on these important matters have been recorded by him in his work on a Liberal Education. It is worth remarking that while he was in favour of so advanced a step as making College funds available for University purposes, he strenuously maintained the desirability of preserving that ancient body, the Caput. One of the most vexatious provisions of its constitution was that each member of it had an absolute veto on any grace to which he might object. As the body was selected, the whole legislative power of the University was practically vested in the Heads of Houses, who are not usually the persons best qualified to understand the feeling of the University. Dr Whewell has frequently recorded, in his correspondence, his vexation when graces proposed by himself were rejected by this body; and yet, though he knew how badly the constitution worked, his attachment to existing forms was so great, that he could not be persuaded to yield on any point except the mode of election.

We have spoken first of Whewell’s work in his College and University, because it was to them that he dedicated his life. We must now say a word or two on his literary and scientific attainments. He wrote an excellent English style, which reflects the personality of the writer to a more than usual extent. As might be expected from his studies and tone of mind, he always wrote with clearness and good sense, though occasionally his periods are rough and unpolished, defects due to his habit of writing as fast as he could make the pen traverse the paper. But, just as it was not natural to him to be grave for long together, we find his most serious criticisms and pamphlets—nay, even his didactic works—lightened by good-humoured banter and humorous illustrations. On the other hand, when he was thoroughly serious and in earnest, his style rose to a dignified eloquence which has rarely been equalled, and never surpassed. For an illustration of our meaning we beg our readers to turn to the final chapters of the Plurality of Worlds. He was always fond of writing verse; and published more than one volume of poems and translations, of which the latter are by far the most meritorious. Nor must we forget his valiant efforts to get hexameters and elegiacs recognized as English metres. Example being better than precept, he began by printing a translation of Goethe’s Hermann und Dorothea, in the metre of the original, which he at first circulated privately among his friends; but subsequently he discussed the subject in several papers, in which he laid down the rules which he thought were required for successful composition of the metre. His main principle is to pay attention to accent, not to quantity, and to use trochees where the ancients would have used spondees; in other words, where according to the classical hexameter we should have two strong syllables, we are to have a strong syllable followed by a weak one. Here is a short specimen from the Isle of the Sirens:

Mrs Stair Douglas has acted wisely in reprinting the elegiacs written after the death of Mrs Whewell. We cannot believe that the metre will ever be popular; but in the case of this particular poem eccentricities of style will be forgiven for the sake of the dignified beauty of the thoughts. With the exception of In Memoriam, we know of no finer expression of Christian sorrow and Christian hope. We will quote a few lines from the first division of the poem, in which the bereaved husband describes the happiness which his wife had brought to him:

It is painful to be obliged to record that Whewell’s executors found that the copyright of his works had no mercantile value. He perhaps formed a true estimate of his own powers when he said that all that he could do was to ‘systematize portions of knowledge which the consent of opinions has brought into readiness for such a process^[14].’ His name will not be associated with any great discovery, or any original theory, if we except his memoir on Crystallography, which is the basis of the system since adopted; and his researches on the Tides, which have afforded a clear and satisfactory view of those of the Atlantic, while it is hardly his fault if those of the Pacific were not elucidated with equal clearness^[15]. It too often happens that those who originally suggest theories are forgotten in the credit due to those who develop them; and we are afraid that this has been the fate of Whewell. Even as a mathematician he is not considered really great by those competent to form a judgment. He was too much wedded to the geometrical fashions of his younger days, and ‘had no taste for the more refined methods of modern analysis^[16].’ In science, as in other matters, his strong conservative bias stood in his way. He was constitutionally unable to accept a thorough-going innovation. For instance, he withstood to the last Lyell’s uniformity, and Darwin’s evolution^[17]. Much, therefore, of what he wrote will of necessity be soon forgotten; but we hope that some readers may be found for his Elements of Morality, and that his great work on the Inductive Sciences may hold its own. It is highly valued in Germany; and in England Mr John Stuart Mill, one of the most cold and severe of critics, who differed widely from Whewell in his scientific views, has declared that ‘without the aid derived from the facts and ideas contained in the History of the Inductive Sciences, the corresponding portion of his own System of Logic would probably not have been written.’

We have felt it our duty to point out these shortcomings; but it is a far more agreeable one to turn from them, and conclude our essay by indicating the lofty tone of religious enthusiasm which runs through all his works. As Dr Lightfoot pointed out in his funeral sermon, ‘the world of matter without, the world of thought within, alike spoke to him of the Eternal Creator the Beneficent Father; and even his opponent, Sir David Brewster, who more strongly than all his other critics had denounced what he termed the paradox advanced in The Plurality of Worlds, that our earth may be ‘the oasis in the desert of the solar system,’ was generous enough to admit that posterity would forgive the author ‘on account of the noble sentiments, the lofty aspirations, and the suggestions, almost divine, which mark his closing chapter on the future of the universe.’