262 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a reputation as his could not have been sustained ; but it was in no 

 small degree due also to the peculiar originality of his character, both 

 intellectual and moral, and to the absolutely tireless energy of his versa- 

 tile mind. 



" Those who remember Cambridge some ten or fifteen years ago will 

 readily call to mind his fame while an undergraduate there. From 

 the time when he came up to the university, with the high reputation 

 which he had won while a schoolboy, to the time he left it some eight 

 years afterward to become Professor of Mathematics at University 

 College, London, he was more universally known and discussed among 

 all classes at the university, whether undergraduates, graduates, or 

 dons, than any of his contemporaries. He was indeed at all times a 

 contrast to the normal type. At first, when fresh from school, he ap- 

 peared as an ardent High Churchman, but he gradually became known 

 as a devoted follower of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and as the champion of 

 those views with which his name has since been identified. But, what- 

 ever was the precise phase of thought in which he might be, there was 

 the same brilliant though paradoxical style of asserting and defending 

 his beliefs which made him the terror of authorities and the delight of 

 younger men. He never was in any sense the head of a party there. He 

 was far too eccentric and original to have many followers or imitators. 

 But no one had a wider circle of intimate friends, and no one could 

 be in intimate intercourse with him without being deeply influenced 

 by his views ; and it was at that time chiefly by his direct influence 

 on those personally acquainted with him that he produced his effect on 

 the university. But the many-sidedness of his character caused this 

 direct personal influence to be much more widely extended than would 

 have seemed possible to those unacquainted with him. Gifted with an 

 almost equal love for science, mathematics, history, and literature 

 we may even add gymnastics he was the center of a knot of devotees 

 of each of these studies, each of whom welcomed him as a comrade and 

 regarded with jealousy his attention to other subjects as being likely 

 to seduce him from the true bent of his genius into less important and 

 congenial studies. And no doubt it was a fortunate thing in this in- 

 stance that the arrangements for retaining the ablest men at the Eng- 

 lish universities are so imperfect, that Professor Clifford found no cer- 

 tainty of sufficient scope for his energies there, and resolved to leave 

 that abode of learned leisure, and come to London, to become a mathe- 

 matical professor, inasmuch as it was this that prevented him from 

 wasting his life in desultory essays in a great variety of directions. No 

 doubt all of these would have shown a power which would have made 

 them remarkable, but they would have been dearly purchased by the 

 sacrifice of the far greater and more abiding results that followed the 

 concentration of his energies on the one or two subjects to which he 

 devoted himself after his departure from the university. 



" When resident in London the same qualities that had won him so 



