[Born 1794. Still living.]
This illustrious scientific man is the son of a poor blacksmith, and was in early life apprenticed to a bookbinder, at which craft he worked until his twenty-second year. His great delight in electrical researches brought him into acquaintance with Sir Humphrey Davy, whose assistant he became in the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where Faraday himself in time rose to the dignity of Fullerian Professor. The discoveries of Faraday in several branches of science have placed him in the very highest rank amongst European philosophers. The most difficult and abstruse points in connexion with light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and the laws of matter, have been simplified to an extraordinary degree by the force of his sagacity and singular acuteness. As remarkable as his genius for discovery, and for the detection of the hidden operations of nature, is his admirable faculty of exposition. No living man approaches Faraday in the easy power of communicating the results of the most subtle investigation to a miscellaneous audience. Passing through his lucid understanding, every subject, however abstruse or abstract, becomes simple, clear, and attractive.
[By E. H. Baily, R.A. Executed in 1823.]
436*. Mary Somerville. Mathematician and Astronomer.
[Still living.]
One of the few women who step out from the limits which seem naturally assigned to their intellectual avocations, to compete with men in theirs. One of the fewer who do so, deserting none of their proper tasks, forfeiting nothing of their proper character. A profound mathematician and astronomer; a delicate inquirer into natural phenomena. Her work on “The Connexion of the Physical Sciences” spreads out, in a form designed for the uninitiated reader, but not for the inattentive, a large variety of impressive knowledge, on some of the most interesting laws of the natural world. Her manner of writing is remarkably simple, descriptive, clear and exact.
[By Macdonald. Executed in Rome, 1848.]
437. William Whewell. Philosopher.
[Born at Lancaster, 1795. Still living.]
The Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and at this moment the greatest ornament of that celebrated university. He has been tutor in the college of which he is the Head, and Professor of Mineralogy. Subsequently appointed to the Chair of Moral Philosophy, which he still occupies. A great promoter of the study of this branch of human learning, both by his writings and his oral lectures. Has contributed valuable essays on the subject of education, with especial reference to the studies of his own university. Has enriched mathematical and physical science with many original investigations; is the author of a great work on the History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, and of many scientific treatises exhibiting the application of the higher mathematics to natural philosophy. The vigour, activity, vivacity, and quickness of his intellect is extraordinary: his memory, in relation to almost every branch of literature and science, is rich to overflowing, and his faculty of conversation brilliant. The mind of William Whewell, by natural, impetuous action, invades all territories of knowledge, and grasps at a dominion forbidden by the term allotted to human life: but that mind, clearly and beyond all doubt, has power to grapple and to deal effectually with all that it has time to apprehend and seize. It is not to be wondered, that the temper of so ardent a spirit should be hasty: that its nature is frank, generous, and noble.