264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



power over the intricate and abstruse branches of mathematics to 

 which he gave his main affections, and to find his equal we should 

 have to look among veterans whose names will for ever be identified 

 with these subjects. Such was his prodigious grasp over the phantoms 

 that people these remoter regions of thought, that while little more 

 than a boy he seemed fit to take his place among the masters of these 

 studies. And there can be no doubt that, if the innate restlessness of 

 his nature would have permitted him to accept the quiet of a mathe- 

 matician's life, he might have left behind him what would have en- 

 titled him to take rank as one of our greatest mathematicians. But it 

 is hard to forego the pleasure of using powers which one is conscious 

 of possessing, and the temptation to which the versatility of his mind 

 subjected him was wellnigh fatal to his reputation as a specialist. Ev- 

 ery now and then something would turn his energy into these lines, 

 and he would show by some fragment what magnificent work he was 

 capable of doing ; but it was for a long time doubtful whether he would 

 ever do justice to himself in this respect, and by more continuous ap- 

 plication to some special subject produce results worthy of his powers. 

 As time went on, however, this changed ; during the last few years 

 there were fewer signs of the old desultoriness, and both in his ' Ele- 

 ments of Dynamic ' and his various mathematical papers there were 

 abundant traces of the concentration of effort which alone was needed 

 to secure success. But, alas ! this was only too speedily succeeded by 

 the leisure of the sick-bed. Perhaps it was the feeling of decaying 

 strength which first made Professor Clifford limit the sphere of his 

 efforts, and seek to finish some of his many projects, instead of form- 

 ing new ones. Whether this was so or not, it was not the less a gain 

 to the world, though even now what we possess should be considered 

 only as indications of what his powers would have been when fully 

 developed. Few, if any, have done such brilliant work and yet died 

 leaving us to feel that it must be taken only as the promise, and not 

 as the measure, of their powers. 



" But what the mathematical world lost in this want of specializa- 

 tion of Professor Clifford's powers was gained by the general educated 

 public. His powers as a scientific expositor were as remarkable as 

 his mathematical abilities. His talent did not lie in experimental illus- 

 tration ; on the contrary, he seldom, if ever, resorted to it. Nor did 

 he ever condescend to the nurse-like prattle by which some scientific 

 lecturers make themselves comprehensible to the meanest intellects 

 but to those only. There was not a sentence, or a scientific statement, 

 in one of Professor Clifford's lectures of which he need have been 

 ashamed in an address to the most scientific or learned society." 



