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—
‘I make
A vow of reformation every spring,