SKETCH OF PROFESSOR CLIFFORD. 259 



at Trinity College, filling the post until his appointment to the chair 

 of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College, London, 

 in August, 1871, a position which he held until his death. Professor 

 Clifford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June, 1874. He 

 took prizes and honors wherever he went, which was the more remark- 

 able, as his mind could not tolerate the usual school restraints, and he 

 could not be induced to give much attention to the regular subjects of 

 examination. He had consumption, which greatly impaired his work- 

 ing power in the latter portion of his life ; and he died on the island 

 of Madeira, where he had gone with his wife and two children to get 

 the benefit of its milder climate. 



Clifford was a genius, and brilliant from his boyhood. He early de- 

 veloped rare mathematical talent, and published the " Analogues of 

 Pascal's Theorem" in the "Quarterly Journal of Mathematics" at the 

 age of eighteen. His mind was at home in all highest mathematical 

 questions, to which he made many profound and original contributions. 

 Professor Sylvester remarked, " All that Professor Clifford adds is the 

 very pith and marrow of the matter." Just before his death he pub- 

 lished a little mathematical work, " The Elements of Dynamic," in 

 which his faculty for the subject is fully displayed. It will probably 

 not take high rank as a university text-book, for which it was intended, 

 but is admired by mathematicians for the elegance, freshness, and origi- 

 nality displayed in the treatment of mathematical problems. 



Clifford had no special taste for the acquisition of languages, but 

 was interested in their mechanism, and took interest in short-hand, 

 phonography, and telegraphic alphabets. Later in life, however, he 

 mastered modern Greek and Spanish, and dabbled in Arabic and San- 

 skrit, which, in addition to his earlier Greek and Latin, French and 

 German, landed him pretty heavily in the direction of vocabularies. 



He was an early and devoted student of classics, and held extreme 

 High-Church notions when he went to Cambridge. In his knowledge 

 of the " Fathers " he is said to have surpassed the bishops, and his 

 theological acquirements were of great use to him in his polemical and 

 critical discussions. Not satisfied in addressing that very small portion 

 of the public that understands mathematics, versatile in his powers, 

 and of a restless temperament, he was powerfully attracted to those 

 great subjects of scientific and speculative inquiry that have lately be- 

 come so prominent in the world of thought. Into this field he entered 

 vigorously, and made a strong impression upon the reading public by 

 various able and elaborate articles which appeared in the " Fortnight- 

 ly " and " Contemporary " Reviews, and in " The Nineteenth Century." 

 He was an extreme and uncompromising rationalist, and although per- 

 sonally greatly liked on account of his gentleness and affability, he made 

 many enemies by the relentless severity of his writing on topics that 

 are conventionally handled with delicacy and caution. He discussed 

 a variety of philosophical subjects, always in a striking and attractive 



