Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/575

Rh W H E W H E 539 The first settlement (Fort Fincastle) on the present site of Wheel ing was made in 1769. In 1776 its name was changed to Fort Henry ; it was twice besieged by the British and Indians, in 1777 and 1782. It was incorporated as a village under its present name in 1806, and in 1836 it received a city charter. Upon the forma tion of the State of West Virginia in 1863 Wheeling was made the capital. In 1S70 this dignity was conferred upon Charleston ; in 1875 it was restored to Wheeling, but lost again in 1885 to Charleston. The following figures illustrate the growth of Wheel ing : _population in 1810, 914 ; in 1820, 1567 ; in 1840, 7385 ; in 1860, 14,083 ; in 1870, 19,280 ; and in 1880, 30,737. WHEWELL, WILLIAM (1794-1866), philosopher and historian of science, was born on 24th May 1794 at Lan caster, where his father was a house-carpenter. He was educated at the blue school and the grammar school of Lancaster, and afterwards at Heversham grammar school, where he obtained the exhibition which enabled him to enter Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1812. For the remainder of his life his home Avas within the walls of Trinity. He graduated as second wrangler in 1816, was elected fellow in 1817, appointed a mathematical lecturer in the following year, and in due course became one of the college tutors. From 1828 to 1832 he held the professor ship of mineralogy and from 1838 to 1855 that of moral philosophy, or (as it was then called) moral theology and casuistical divinity. In 1841 he was appointed master of the college on the resignation of Dr Wordsworth. He died on 6th March 1866 from the effects of a fall from his horse. Soon after taking his degree Whewell began to lay the foundation of his reputation by great and varied activity as an author, as well as by the prominent part he took in all matters educational and constitutional concerning the college and university. His first work, An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics (1819), was influential along with the works of Peacock and Herschel in reforming the traditional method of mathematical teaching in Cam bridge ; and it was also largely due to him that, at a later period (1856), the circle of Cambridge studies was widened by the admission of the moral and natural sciences to an academic position. On the other hand, his attitude with respect to questions of university and college reform was (especially in later life) conservative. Claiming to be a reformer, he had yet no sympathy with the constitutional changes proposed at the time, and since commonly accepted as desirable and necessary. He upheld .strenuously the tutorial system, while endeavouring to im prove its efficiency ; he opposed the admission of Dissenters to the university in a controversy with Thirlwall (1834) ; he defended the system of clerical fellowships, the custom Avhich admitted a privileged class of students under the name of &quot;fellow-commoners,&quot; and the large powers which the &quot; caput &quot; or head of a college then possessed in university government. The appointment of the University Commis sion in 1850 encountered his opposition, and the proposed reform of the university in 1855 called forth from him two pamphlets of hostile Remarks. The reform really Avanted Avas, he contended, to encourage scientific and professorial Avork, and to utilize the college funds, not to put elections in the hands of the members of senate. In the summer of 1826, and again in 1828, WheAvell Avas engaged along Avith Airy in conducting experiments in Dolcoath mine, CornAvall, in order to determine the density of the earth. Their united labours were unsuccess ful, and Whewell did little more in the Avay of experimental science. He Avas the author, hoAvever, of an Essay on ^[ineralogical Classification, published in 1828, and con tributed various memoirs on the tides to the Philosophical Transactions of the lloyal Society between 1833 and 1850. Hut it is on his History and Philosophy of the Sciences that his claim to an enduring reputation mainly rests. The His tory of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time appeared originally in 1837. Whewell s Avide ac quaintance with various branches of science though he cannot be said to have been a specialist in any department enabled him to Avrite a comprehensive account of their development, which has not yet been superseded, although it may Avant the thoroughness, and even in many respects the accuracy, of various subsequent histories of the special sciences. In his own opinion, moreover, the History Avas to be regarded as an introduction to the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840). The latter treatise * analyses the method exemplified in the formation of ideas, in the new inductions of science, and in the applications and systematization of these inductions, all exhibited by the History in the process of development. The Philoso2)liy is described by the author as &quot; an application of the plan of Bacon s Novum Organum to the present condition of physical science,&quot; and as an attempt &quot;to extract from the actual past progress of science the elements of a more effectual and sub stantial method of discovery&quot; than Bacon s. The Philosophy is divided into two parts, treating respectively of ideas and of know ledge. The first part begins with an investigation of ideas in general, analysing the fundamental nature of scientific truths, the grounds of our knowledge of them, and the mental processes by which they are ascertained, and then applies these general prin ciples to the philosophy of each of the subdivisions of science adopted in the History. The second part discusses knowledge or the construction of science, the processes by which our conceptions are brought to bear on facts, binding them together into ideal com binations. By the &quot; explication of conceptions &quot; the ideas appro priate to particular classes of facts are brought forward and ex plained ; and by the &quot;colligation of facts&quot; the conceptions involving those ideas are united to the facts for the construction of science. But no art of discovery, such as Bacon anticipated, follows from the analysis of the method of scientific discovery ; for the elements of &quot; invention, sagacity, genius,&quot; are needed at each forward step in scientific progress. At the same time Whewell claimed that the methods exhibited in his analysis were, not only the methods by which discoveries had actually been made, but also as definite and practical as any that had been put forward. The process of induction (or colligation of ascertained facts into general proposi tions) is analysed into three steps, (1) the selection of the (funda mental) idea, such as space, number, cause, or likeness ; (2) the formation of the conception, or more special modification of those ideas, as a circle, a uniform force, &c. ; and (3) the determination of magnitudes. Upon these follow special methods of induction applicable to quantity, viz., the method of curves, the method of means, the method of least squares, and the method of residues, and special methods depending on resemblance (to which the transition is made through the law of continuity), viz., the method of gradation and the method of natural classification. Whewell s philosophy of science, as well as his ethical doctrine, was conditioned by opposition to the empirical tendency then preva lent amongst English thinkers. In this he was influenced by the results of the Kantian philosophy. He maintained the distinction between necessary and contingent truths, the former involved in the innate constitution of the mind, the latter coming from experi ence. It is on this reference to the mind of what the current English philosophy attempted to derive from impressions of sense that the leading positions of his philosophy depend, and on it hinges the controversy between himself and J. S. Mill. He de fended the a priori necessity of axioms attacked by the latter, and in his inductive theory attributed more importance to the function of the mental idea in the colligation of facts than Mill did, while he would have dispensed with the inductive methods of Mill by his rules for the construction of conceptions. Between 1835 and 1861 Whewell was the author of various works on the philosophy of morals and politics, the chief of which, Ele ments of Morality, including Polity, was published in 1845. The peculiarity of this work written, of course, from what is known as the intuitional point of view is its fivefold division of the springs of action and of their objects, of the primary and universal rights of man (personal security, property, contrast, family rights, and government), and of the cardinal virtues (benevolence, justice, truth, purity, and order). Among Whewell s other works too numerous to mention reference must be made to writings popular in their day, such as the Bridgewater Treatise on Astronomy (1833), and the essay, Of the Plurality of Worlds (1854), in which he argued 1 Afterwards broken up into three parts published separately : (1) the History of Scientific Ideas (1858), substantially a reproduction of the first part of the Philosophy ; (2) the Xovum Organum Rcnoratum (1858), containing the second part of the same work, but without the historical review of opinions, which was issued with large additions as (3) the Philosophy of Discovery (1860).