SKETCH OF PROFESSOR JEVONS. 747 



logical computations shown to be necessary for the complete solu- 

 tion of the problem. 



The remainder of the treatise is an exhaustive account of the 

 methods of scientitic investigation. What is most remarkable in this 

 portion of the work is the combination of extensive and accurate 

 knowledge of facts with perfect command of the most general prin- 

 ciples. As a writer on scientific method, Prof. Jevons is fairly en- 

 titled to the credit of being a peer of predecessors so eminent as 

 Herschel, Whewell, and Mill. He has given the fullest and best ex- 

 position of the methods actually employed by the greatest scientific 

 workers, and has collected from all quarters a mass of most richly- 

 varied illustration. 



The concluding book of the treatise is a brief but pregnant essay 

 on the results and limits of scientific method. The outcome of the 

 author's careful analysis of induction, the essentially ^^roJai^e charac- 

 ter of what are called natural laws, is applied as a corrective to the 

 rash scientific generalizations indulged in by many writers, and to 

 the equally rash deductions from them. At the present time his. 

 weighty remarks on the supposed contradiction between natural law 

 and divine providence in any form are peculiarly deserving of attention. 



Prof. Jevons published a volume, in 1875, entitled "Money, and 

 the Mechanism of Exchange," forming part of "The International 

 Scientific Series." It contains a lucid and admirably-written exposi- 

 tion of the nature and functions of money, the principles of circu- 

 lation, the various forms of credit documents, and the elaborate 

 mechanism (banks, check, and clearing systems) by which money 

 exchanges are facilitated. Careful and comjjlete historical notices 

 are also given with regard to the various metallic currencies, modes 

 of coinage, and regulations of issue, while technical matters, such as 

 the qualities requisite for good metallic currency, the loss of weight 

 in coins by usage, and the cost of keeping up the currency, receive 

 due attention. His last publication was the little compendium of 

 logic called "The Logic Primer," intended to give general readers 

 some idea of this science. 



In 1868 Prof. Jevons was appointed an Examiner in Political 

 Economy in London University. In 1870 he was President of the 

 Economic Section (Section E) of the British Association at its Liver- 

 pool meeting. In 1872 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. 

 In 1874 and 1875 he was an Examiner for the Moral Sciences Tripos 

 at Cambridge. In the year 1876 the Senatus Academicus of Edin- 

 burgh University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL. D. ; 

 and in the same year he was appointed Examiner in Logic and Moral 

 Philosophy in London University. In March, 1876, Prof. Jevons an- 

 nounced his resignation of his professorship at Owens College ; and 

 in October, 1876, he entered upon the duties of the distinguished 

 position to which he had been chosen, and which he now occupies, as 

 Professor of Political Economy in University College, London. 



