Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/462

 the first meeting at York, but he was at the Oxford meeting in 1832, and a secretary at the Cambridge meeting of 1833. He then induced Quetelet and (Sir) William Rowan Hamilton [q. v.] to attend, and gave and address expounding his principles of scientific inquiry. He was afterwards a regular attendant at the meetings; was a vice-president at Dublin in 1835—where he took occasion to study Irish architecture and the round towers—and president at Plymouth in 1841. He remarked in his presidential address that there was scarcely ‘any subordinate office of labour or dignity’ in the body which he had not discharged at one or other of its meetings. He suggested at the first meeting the reports upon the state of various sciences, and he himself contributed various memoirs. He seems to have originally taken up the subject of tides with the intention of reporting to the association. He published his fourteen memoirs upon tides in the Royal Society's ‘Transactions’ from 1833 to 1850, and in 1837 received a gold medal from the Royal Society for his investigations. He had many other relations with scientific contemporaries. In 1831 he helped Lyell, whose ‘Principles of Geology’ he had reviewed in the ‘British Critic,’ to construct an appropriate geological nomenclature; and in 1834 he had a similar correspondence with Faraday in regard to a nomenclature for his correspondent's discoveries in electricity. In February 1837 he was made president of the Geological Society in succession to Lyell, the office being tenable for two years. In February 1838 and 1839 he delivered two addresses in this capacity, announcing the award of the Wollaston medal to Owen on the first and to Professor Ehrenberg on the second occasion. Among these various occupations Whewell had found time to complete the first part of his greatest book. He describes the general plan in a letter to Jones on 27 July 1834. The ‘History of the Inductive Sciences’ appeared in three thick octavo volumes in 1837. The sequel, called the ‘Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,’ in two thick volumes, was published in 1840. Humboldt acknowledged a copy of this book in a letter expressive of warm admiration (given in, i. 147–9). The whole went through various modifications in later editions. Lyell had been accustomed to regret (as he had said in a letter to the author) that Whewell had not concentrated himself upon some special department. He had now come round to the belief that Whewell had given a greater impulse to study by becoming ‘a universalist’ (, i. 112). Brewster criticised the ‘History’ in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ for October 1837, and the ‘Philosophy’ in the ‘Edinburgh’ for January 1842; besides noticing Whewell unfavourably in an article upon Comte in the same review for July 1838 (see Correspondence, pp. 193, 371, 374, 377–81). Outsiders considered that the severity was due to personal malignity, and the general opinion of the books was highly favourable. Whewell henceforth held a recognised position of high authority among the scientific writers of the day. The publication of these treatises was at least a remarkable proof of Whewell's extraordinary powers of accumulating knowledge. The tutorship in a leading college is generally found enough to occupy a man's whole energy. Although the duties were probably less absorbing at that than at a later time, Whewell had plenty of work as a tutor, and it is not surprising that he found some of the duties irksome. In 1833 he had handed over to Charles Perry (1807–1891) [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Melbourne, the financial duties of his office; and moved into rooms in the New Court, looking down the lime-tree avenue (, ii. 170, 173). This arrangement, as he says, would enable him to finish his book. Thirlwall also took part of his friend's duties. Thirlwall next year got into difficulties by a pamphlet advocating the admission of dissenters and speaking unfavourably of compulsory attendance at chapel. Whewell wrote two pamphlets in answer to Thirlwall—mainly on the chapel question. He protested, however, urgently against the dismissal of Thirlwall by the master; and Thirlwall acknowledged his good offices in cordial terms (see, pp. 165–70, for letters). Their common friend Hare had left Cambridge in 1832. In 1836 Whewell was a candidate for the Lowndean professorship, to which, however, Peacock was appointed through the influence of his personal friend, Thomas Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle) [q. v.] (ib. p. 184). In the same year Whewell wrote a pamphlet upon the ‘Study of Mathematics’ which brought him into a controversy with Sir William Hamilton. Whewell's first pamphlet and a reply to Hamilton are embodied in a book upon the ‘Principles of an English University Education’ (1837). He here defended principles which were more fully explained in a later book (of 1845) upon the same topic, and which guided his action in regard to university reform. In 1838 he finally retired from the tutorship, and in June of that year was elected to the Knightbridge professorship of 