Volume 1

William Whewell, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge : an account of his writings with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence / by I. Todhunter.

  • Isaac Todhunter
Date:
1876
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: William Whewell, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge : an account of his writings with selections from his literary and scientific correspondence / by I. Todhunter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    96/456 (page 60)
    GO REVIEW OF LYELL’s GEOLOGY. election in December he seems to have supported Mr Lubbock, afterwards Sir J. W. Lubbock, who was not successful. Ihe correspondence of Mr Whewell with various scientific friends seems to begin in the present year—namely, with Professor De Morgan, Professor Phillips, Professor Ttigaud, and Mr Eaton Hodgkinson. Professor De Morgan consulted him respecting an important memoir on Physical Astronomy, to which it was pro- posed to award a medal by the Astronomical Society. The busi- ness of the British Association led to his intimacy with Professor Phillips, who was then connected with the Yorkshire Philosophical Society. With Professor Bigaud he corresponded first on some points in the history of Mechanics, and afterwards on circum- stances connected with the life of Newton. Mr Hodgkinson invited Mr Whewell’s attention to the experiments he wras then making on the impact of bodies; these afterwards formed the subject of a communication to the British Association. I shall now notice some publications which belong to this year. Mr Whewell reviewed the second volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, in pages 103... 132 of the Quarterly Review, Number 93, published in March, 1832. The review was written at the request of Mr Lyell, who supplied Mr Whewell with the sheets in the course of the printing. Mr Lyell was in some fear that the review would be finished before all the sheets had been received and read. This volume, like the first, is highly praised by the reviewer, and on one very important point he is on the same side as the author. I will extract a few sentences: “ His [Mr Lyell’s] first volume contained a very masterly expo- sition of the present mode of action and the intensity of the moving forces of the earth, with a defence of the sufficiency of these to explain all the geological phenomena which belong to that part of the subject. The present volume is occupied with various discussions on the laws and limits of the variability of organisation, and is an estimate of the nature and amount of the alterations which causes, belonging to the animal and vegetable world, are now producing. The author’s conclusion is, that the changes of this kind at present going on, are highly important towards the explanation of many of the facts of geology : but that