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

WILLIAM WHEWELL was born, May 24th, 1794, in the city of Lancaster, where his father practised as a house carpenter. He was educated first at a grammar school in his native place, and afterwards at Heversham, whither he removed in order to qualify himself for holding an exhibition at Trinity College, Cambridge. He gained this exhibition, and commenced residence at Trinity in 1812. The College soon recognized in him the most promising man of his years. In due course he obtained a foundation, sizarship, and a scholarship. In his second year he gained the Chancellor's prize for the best English poem, on the subject of 'Boadicea.' In 1816 he graduated B.A. as second wrangler in the mathematical tripos, and held the same place in the Smith's Prize examination. The following year found him a Fellow of his college, and lecturer, as assistant-tutor, on mathematics.

The varied works which subsequently 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. Few men have been endowed with 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 Dr. 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 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 was wedded, and individually, he 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 Freyburg

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 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 contrasted mathematics and logic, and endeavoured 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 the late Sir William Hamilton, of Edinburgh. This did not, of course, pass without a rejoinder from the chivalrous defender of the Cambridge system of education; and it is difficultnow 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 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.' In this 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 was 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.'

In 1841 he succeeded Dr. Wordsworth in the Mastership of Trinity; and nobly did he uphold the pre-eminence of that college to the end of his days.

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.'

Mr. Mill, 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