704 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



essays can be judged by all who are capable 

 of thinking. The feature that strikes us 

 most in repei-using these volumes, and to 

 which we have before called attention as a 

 characteristic of his writings, is the mastery 

 they display of the art of luminous exposi- 

 tion in dealing with obscure and abstruse 

 subjects. Here Clifford is quite incomparable, 

 and there are parts of these volumes which 

 will long survive as models of popular state- 

 ment, delightful to the reader from their 

 vividness and marvelous lucidity. Clifford 

 is at his best in disentangling and laying out 

 to view subjects which baffle ordinary grasp 

 and penetration. He may be said to make 

 perfectly clear things which ordinary people 

 complain that they can only partially and 

 imperfectly understand. To take a random 

 example, we open volume one, and happen 

 to strike, in the middle of it, a discourse 

 upon atoms. This might be at once taken 

 as a crucial test of Clifford's power of pic- 

 turing by language. Everybody knows some- 

 thing about atoms, and everybody is bewil- 

 dered in the attempt to form such a concep- 

 tion of them as will explain the mutual in- 

 fluences and interactions of the material 

 bodies which are composed of atoms. Turn- 

 ing to the beginning of this lecture, which 

 was a popular effort in a Sunday course, we 

 find him thus opening his subject 



If I were to wet tny finger and then rub it 

 along the edge of this glass I should no doubt 

 persuade the glass to give out a certain musical 

 rote. So, also, if I were to sing to that glass the 

 same note loud enough, I should get the glass to 

 answer me back with a note. 



I want you to remember that fact, because it 

 is of capital importance for the arguments we 

 shall have to consider to-night. The very same 

 note which I can get the tumbler to give out by 

 agitating it, by rubbing the edge, that same note 

 I can also get the tumbler to answer back to 

 me when I sing to it. Now, remembering that, 

 please to conceive a rather complicated thing 

 that I am now going to describe to you. The 

 same property that belongs to the glass belongs 

 also to a bell which is made out of metal. If 

 that bell is agitated by being struck, or in any 

 other way, it will give out the same sound that 

 it will answer back, if you sing that sound to it ; 

 but if you sing a different sound to it theu it 

 will not answer. 



Now, suppose that I have several of these 

 metal bells which answer to quite different 

 notes, and that they are all fastened to a set of 

 elastic stalks which spring out of a certain cen- 

 ter to which tlioy are fastened. All these bells, 

 then, are not only fastened to these stalks, but 



they are held there in such a way that they can 

 spin round upon the points to which they are 

 fastened. 



And then the center to which these elastic 

 stalks are fastened or suspended you may im- 

 agine as able to move in all manners o f directions, 

 and that the whole structure made up of these 

 bells and stalks and center is able to spin round 

 any axis whatever. We must also suppose that 

 there is surrounding this structure a ceitain 

 framework. We will suppose the framework to 

 be made of some elastic material, so that it is able 

 to be pressed in to a certain extent. Suppose that 

 framework is made of whalebone, if you like. 

 This structure I am going for the present to call 

 an "atom." I do not mean to say that atoms 

 are made of a structure like that. I do not mean 

 to say that there is anything in an atom which is 

 in the shape of a bell: and I do not mean to say 

 that there is anything analogous to an elastic 

 stalk in it. £ut what I mean is this— that an 

 atom is something that is capable of vibrating 

 at certain definite rates; aho that it is capable 

 of other motions of its parts besides those vibra- 

 tions at certain definite rates; and also that it is 

 capable of spinning round about any axis. Now, 

 by the framework which I suppose to be put 

 round that structure, made out of bells and elas- 

 tic stalks, I mean this — that supposing you had 

 two such structures, then you can not put them 

 closer together than a certain distance, but they 

 will begin to resist being put close together, 

 after you have put them as near as that, and they 

 will push each other away if you attempt to put 

 them closer. That is all I mean, then. You must 

 only suppose that that structure is described, 

 and that set of ideas is put together just for the 

 sake of giving us some definite notion of a thing 

 which has similar properties to that structure. 

 But you must not suppose that there is any 

 special pfirt of an atom which has got a bell-like 

 form, or any part like an elastic stalk made out 

 of whalebone. 



A large part of these essays is devoted 

 to the discussion of the moral and religious 

 problems which so prominently occupy the 

 speculative attention of the age-. These 

 subjects are all handled with the author's 

 customary originality and felicity ; but it is 

 impossible here to give any account of them. 

 He attempted no system, and his work must 

 be looked upon as consisting of elaborate 

 fragments, valuable for what they are sepa- 

 rately worth. We quote a portion of the 

 criticism passed upon him by the London 

 " Spectator " : 



The late Professor Clifford was a meteoric 

 sort of moral phenomenon, who to many, even 

 of those who had some personal knowledge of 

 his extraordinary powers, was more of a bewil- 

 derment than a light. He was a man of rare 

 wit and rare powers of fascination, of extraoi^ 

 diuary courage and extraordinary agility, both 



