And break it when the summer comes about’;
for, notwithstanding these promises and many others like them, we shall find that in future years he took upon himself a greater rather than a less amount of work, which he did not merely get through in a perfunctory fashion, but discharged with a thoroughness as rare as it is marvellous.
The Bridgewater Treatise appeared in 1833, a year in which he delivered an address to the British Association, at its meeting at Cambridge; contributed a paper On the Use of Definitions to the Philological Museum; and increased his stock of architectural and geological knowledge by tours with Messrs Rickman, Sedgwick, and Airy. He was now generally recognized as the first authority on scientific language; and we find Professor Faraday deferring to him on the nomenclature of electricity. In 1834 he invented an anemometer, or instrument for measuring the force and direction of the wind; it was employed for some time at York, by Professor Phillips, but has since been superseded by more convenient contrivances.
The real meaning of his longing for leisure soon became manifest. In July 1834 he expounds to his friend Mr Jones the plan of the History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, which he was prosecuting vigorously. This great work occupied him, almost to the exclusion of other matters, for the whole of 1835 and 1836. We say almost, because, even at this time, with his usual habit of taking up some new subject just before he had completed an extensive labour on an old one, he was beginning to study systematic morality, and in 1835 published a preface to Sir James Mackintosh’s Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, a subject which he further considered in 1837, when he preached before the University Four Sermons on the Foundation of Morals. In this year he succeeded Mr Lyell as President of the Geological Society, an office which must have been given to him rather in recognition of his general scientific attainments and the work he had done in the kindred science of mineralogy, than on account of any special publications on geology. He seems to have made an excellent President. Sir Charles Lyell[[4]] speaks of him with enthusiasm, and points out his sacrifices of time, not only in attending the meetings of the Society, but in supervising the details of its organization. The extra work which the office involved is thus described in a letter to his sister, dated November 18, 1837:
‘My old complaint of being overwhelmed with business, especially at this time of year, is at present, I think, rather more severe than ever. For, besides all my usual employments, I have to go to London two days every fortnight as President of the Geological Society, and am printing a book which I have not yet written, so that I am obliged often to run as fast as I can to avoid the printers riding over me, so close are they at my heels. I am, in addition to all this, preaching a course of sermons before the University; but this last employment, though it takes time and thought, rather sobers and harmonizes my other occupations than adds anything to my distraction.’
In this same year (1837) the History of the Inductive Sciences was published, to be followed in less than three years by the Philosophy of the same. This encyclopædic publication—for the two books must be considered together—marks the conclusion of that part of his life which had been devoted, in the main, to pure science; and it gives the reason for his having thrown himself into occupations so diverse. It was not his habit to write on that which he had not completely mastered; and he therefore thought, wrote, and published on most of the separate sciences while tracing their history and developing their philosophy.
In this rapid sketch we have not been able to do more than indicate the principal works which Whewell had had in hand. It must not be forgotten that at the same time he was engaged in a large and ever-increasing correspondence; writing letters—which, as he used to say himself, ought to be ‘postworthy’—not merely to scientific men, as we know from Mr Todhunter’s book, but—as we now know from Mrs Stair Douglas—to his sisters and other ladies, on all sorts of subjects which he thought would interest them. Then he was a wide reader, as is proved by notes he made on the books which he had read from 1817 to 1830: ‘books in almost all the languages of Europe; histories of all countries, ancient or modern; treatises on all sciences, moral and physical. Among the notes is an epitome of Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft, a work which exercised a marked influence on all his speculations in mental philosophy.’ Whatever he read, he read thoroughly. Mr Todhunter illustrates this by a story given on the authority of one of his oldest friends. He was found reading Henry Taylor’s Philip van Artevelde, which then had just appeared. Not content with the poem alone, however, he had Froissart by his side, and was carefully comparing the modern drama with the ancient chronicle. Lastly—and we put the subject we are now about to mention last, not because it was least, but because it was, or ought to have been, the most important of all his occupations—he held the office of tutor of one of the three sides, as they were called, into which Trinity College was then divided, first alone, and next in conjunction with Mr Perry, from 1823 to 1838.
At that time the College was far smaller than it is at present, and a tutor was able, if he chose, to see much more of his pupils, to form some appreciation of their tastes and capacities, and personally to direct their studies. A man who combines the varied qualities which a thoroughly good tutor ought to possess is not readily found. It is a question of natural fitness rather than of training. In the first place, he must be content to forego all other occupations, and to be at the beck and call of his pupils and their parents whenever they may choose to come to him. Secondly, he must never forget that the dull, the idle, and the vicious demand even more care and time than the clever and the industrious. It may seem almost superfluous to mention that nothing which concerns his pupils must be beneath his notice. Petty details which concern their daily life, their rooms, their bills, their domestic relations, their amusements, have all to be referred to the tutor; and the most trivial of these may not seldom be of the greatest importance in giving occasion for exercising influence or administering advice. We are sorry to have to admit that Whewell was hardly so successful as he ought to have been in discharging these arduous duties. The period of his tutorship was, as we have shown, precisely that during which he was most occupied with his private studies; he threw his energies into them, and disposed of his College work in a perfunctory fashion. His letters are full of such passages as: ‘I have got an infinitude of that trifling men call business on my hands’; ‘During the last term I have been almost too busy either to write or read. I took upon myself a number of employments which ate up almost every moment of the day’; and the like; and his delight at having transferred the financial part of the work to his colleague Mr Perry, in 1833, was unbounded. The result was inevitable; he could not give the requisite time to his pupils, and, in fact, hardly knew some of them by sight. A story used to be current about him which is so amusing that we think it will bear repeating. We do not vouch for its accuracy; but we think that it would hardly have passed current had it not been felt to be applicable. One day he gave his servant a list of names of certain of his pupils whom he wished to see at a wine-party after Hall, a form of entertainment then much in fashion. Among the names was that of an undergraduate who had died some weeks before. ‘Mr Smith, sir; why he died last term, sir!’ objected the man. ‘You ought to tell me when my pupils die,’ replied the tutor sternly; and Whewell could be stern when he was vexed. Again, his natural roughness of manner was regarded by the undergraduates as indicating want of sympathy. They thought he wanted to get rid of them and their affairs as quickly as possible. Those who understood him better knew that he was really a warm-hearted friend; and we have seen that with his private pupils he had been exceedingly popular; but those who came only occasionally into contact with him regarded him with fear, not with affection. On the other hand, he was inflexibly just, whatever gossip or malevolence may have urged to the contrary. He had no favourites. No influence of any kind could make him swerve from the lofty standard of right which he had prescribed for himself.
We left Whewell completing the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences; and for the future we shall find him turning his attention exclusively—so far as he could be said to do anything exclusively—to Moral Philosophy. In 1838 he was elected to the Knightbridge Professorship, founded in 1677 by the Rev. John Knightbridge, who directed his Professor of ‘Moral Theology or Casuistical Divinity,’ as he termed it, to read five lectures in the Public Schools in every term, and, at the end of it, to deliver them, fairly written out, to the Vice-Chancellor. Various pains and penalties were enjoined against those who failed to perform these duties; but, notwithstanding, the office had remained a sinecure for more than a century; indeed we are doubtful whether it had ever been anything else. The suggestion that Whewell should become a candidate for it was made by his old friend, Dr Worsley, Master of Downing, who was Vice-Chancellor in that year, and, by virtue of his office, one of the electors. Whewell determined to inaugurate a new era, and at once commenced a course of lectures, which were regularly continued in subsequent years. We have seen that he had prepared himself for these pursuits by previous studies; and his letters show that he had made up his mind to devote himself to them for some years to come. In 1845 he produced his Elements of Morality, wherein the subject is treated systematically; and subsequently he wrote, or edited, works devoted to special parts of it, as Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England; Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis; and the Platonic Dialogues for English Readers. The permanent influence which Grotius exercised upon his mind is marked by his munificent foundation of a Professorship and Scholarships in International Law, in connexion with two additional courts for Trinity College, one of which was built during his life-time, while for the other funds were provided by his Will. The most sober-minded of men may sometimes be a visionary; and the motto Paci sacrum, which Whewell placed on the western façade of his new buildings, would seem to prove that he seriously believed that his foundation would put an end to war, and inaugurate ‘a federation of the world.’