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THE REV. WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., F.R.S., MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

WILLIAM WHEWELL was born in the city of Lancaster, on the 24th of May, 1794. Of the training to which he was subjected during his early youth, we know little. It is, however, certain that it was of that well-ordered nature, which ensures healthful and vigorous physical development, and which encourages the growth of masculine mental powers, while at the same time it regulates and refines them.

The varied works which have emanated from the subject of this memoir, prove the intimate connection of a mind constantly quickened by the impulses of intellectual force, and a body capable of being stirred, through every nerve, into activity, and fitted to endure long-continued and arduous labours without wearying.

There are but few men who have the power of dealing with equal facility with the hard facts of mathematics, the close inductive processes of experimental science, the charms of " divine philosophy," and the wild wingings of fancy over the realms of poetry.

The earliest labours of Mr. Whewell are found in useful manuals of 'Statics and Dynamics,' and in a 'Mechanical Euclid,' which has compelled the approval of even the German mathematicians. An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics' (1819), ' On the Free Motion of Points and on Universal Gravitation '(1832), and 'The First Principles of Mechanics,' published in the same year, are valuable contributions to our knowledge of Motion and Force. The sciences of mineralogy and chemistry were next the objects of his profound study, which resulted in the History and Philosophy of Inductive Science;' while the leisure of a busy life could find repose and pleasure in translating the Hermann and

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Dorothea' of Goethe, and in pouring forth the luxuriant wealth of his mind in words wedded to verse.

If we examine with care the intellectual world around us, we shall perceive that it is divided between two sets of thinkers, or two schools of philosophy. One of these assumes the existence of innate conceptions,-the reception, or rather the birth, of truth, without the aid of experience;-while the other gives to the mind the highest degree of activity and power, but insists on the acquirement of knowledge, by experience. One school belongs to the followers of Plato, who advanced the powers of the human mind to an almost prophetic condition, and uttered his truths, as it were, with a Divine voice. The other, following in the path which Aristotle trod, collects and groups and systematizes-carefully soliciting Nature to disclose her secrets, and admitting only this kind of sifted evidence in support of truth. On the one hand, the mind thinks out that which is, on the other hand, the result of great labour, in which all the senses are compelled into action.

To the first of these philosophies Dr. Whewell is wedded, and, individually, he has nobly supported its claims to high consideration. In his History of the Inductive Sciences' we find a chronological review of the steps of progress in each department of physical inquiry, advancing us steadily towards the high considerations which are involved in the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences.' This work may be regarded as a fine example of the exercise of reason in its pure and proper field; it is a monument of human thought, a record of mental progress, and an indicator of the tract which promises most to the voyager on the ocean of knowledge.

In 1828, Dr. Whewell was named the Professor of Mineralogy at Cambridge; and to complete his knowledge of this department of natural science, he visited Germany. The school of Freyberg attracted his attention, and he studied with assiduity the Cabinet collections of that city, and the mines in its vicinity. The beautiful Mineralogical Museum of Vienna was no less a source of pleasure and instruction to the Cambridge Professor and Tutor. His attention to this division of science led to his election as President of the Geological Society of London in 1836.

In 1830, Dr. Whewell published his opinions 'On a Liberal Education in General, and with particular reference to the leading Studies of the University of Cambridge.' The question of the

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value of mathematics, as conducive to the development of the intellectual powers, became shortly after this the subject of eager discussion, into which Dr. Whewell entered in a very able pamphlet, Thoughts on the Study of Mathematics as part of a Liberal Education.' In this he contrasts mathematics and logic, and endeavours to establish the high and general importance of the former, by showing its superiority to the latter as a school of practical reasoning. The question proposed is, What is the best instrument for educating men to a full development of the reasoning faculty? and the answer given is, Mathematics—insisting that "mathematics are a means of forming logical habits better than logic itself."

The positions maintained by Dr. Whewell were very warmly contested by the logicians, but by no one with that power-and may we add, passion-which distinguished the reply to this pamphlet by Sir William Hamilton. This did not, of course, pass without a rejoinder from the chivalrous defender of the Cambridge system of education; and it is difficult-now that we can look with calmness on the combatants-to say whether the victory rests with the hero of mathematics, or with him who ever wielded his logical lance with a giant's power.

In this

In 1834, Professor Whewell published his 'Astronomy and Physics considered in their Relations to Natural Theology.' In 1838, he gave the world his great work, 'The History of the Inductive Sciences from the Earliest to the Present Times.' book we have the first earnest intimations of a favourable leaning to the philosophy of Kant, and of dissent from the schools of Bacon and Locke. In fact, the history is written mainly to prove that science is not inductive; that we advance in knowledge by "the colligation of facts." "The particular facts are not merely brought together, but there is a new element added to the combination by the very act of thought by which they are combined; the facts are known, but they are insulated and unconnected till the discoverer supplies from his own store a principle of connection. The pearls are there; but they will not hang together till some one provides the string." The 'History of the Inductive Sciences' should be read with the most thoughtful attention, and the study completed by a no less earnest perusal of the third book of Mill's 'Logic,' which may be regarded as the finest essay on induction in our language.

In 1838, Dr. Whewell was elected Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge; and in the same year we again find him discussing the question of the best means of imparting knowledge, in his pamphlet On the Principles of English University Education.'

Supporting his position as Professor of Moral Philosophy, the ever-active mind of Whewell produced 'The Elements of Morality, including Polity' (1845), Lectures on Systematic Morality' (1846), and ‘Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England.'

The author of 'Logic,' in his chapters on the "Logic of the Moral Sciences," proposed the name of Ethology as signifying the science of character to distinguish it from Psychology, the science of the elementary laws of mind. The former he would regard as a purely deductive science, the latter being, as the author of 'Logic' would express it, a science of observation and experiment. Although Dr. Whewell deals most largely and logically with these two divisions of Moral Science, he treats the study of both as being equally dependent on the deductive powers of the mind rather than its inductive experiences. In this he differs from all those who have followed Locke, and allies himself to the band of earnest thinkers who regard Kant as their master amongst moderns, and Plato as the early prophet of their creed.

The great work of Grotius-De Jure Belli et Pacis'-was edited by Professor Whewell in 1854, with a translation and copious English notes, which display in a striking manner his encyclopædic knowledge. Previously to the publication of these works, which we have named as having a direct connection with the Chair of Moral Philosophy, the sequel and extension of the 'History' was produced as 'The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences founded upon their History.' Here it is not possible to give the briefest analysis of this fine effort of thought, which aims-not always, as we think, successfully-to exalt the thinking mind above all the the advantages of experience. "Experience," says Dr. Whewell, "must always consist of a limited number of observations; and however numerous these may be, they can show nothing with regard to the infinite number of cases in which the experiment has not been made. . . . Truths can only be known to be general, not universal, if they depend upon experience alone. Experience cannot bestow that universality which she herself cannot have, nor that necessity of which she has no comprehension."