M 



WOODHOUSE, ROBERT. 



WOODWARD, JOHN. 



804 



Observatory was completed at Cambridge, he was appointed its super- 

 intendent ; but by this time his health had failed, and he was hardly 

 equal to the extent of his duties. Ho died in London, December 23, 

 1827, and was buried in the chapel at Caius College. 



Woodhouse is distinguished as the first who, in his university, culti- 

 vated the methods of analysis which the genius of the Continental 

 mathematicians had made far superior in power to that which Newton 

 had left, which lost was exclusively studied in England at the time 

 when he graduated. He was the first who introduced this analysis 

 into a work written (or at least published) for the English student, 

 and he must therefore be considered as the leader of the movement by 

 which the mathematicians of this country assimilated their methods to 

 those of their Continental brethren. For this position he had peculiar 

 qualifications : a profound and extensive knowledge of every stage of 

 the progress of all that he attempted to introduce ; severe habits of 

 logic, such as are frequently .wanting in the modern mathematician ; a 

 perfect absence of discipleship ; ability to see that much of his impor- 

 tation was as inferior in accuracy as it was superior in power; and 

 thought and talent to suggest the means of amendment. To these 

 wo must add a high private character, and the esteem of his contem- 

 poraries things of the utmost consequence to a literary reformer. 

 His style of writing is peculiarly his own, frequently difficult and per- 

 plexed in appearance, but always containing those little additions and 

 collateral explanations which many writers omit, to the detriment of 

 the reader. It would almost seem as if the hints just alluded to had 

 been stuck in after the sentences were written. With those who 

 would rather be stopped for a minute by a writer's construction than 

 for an hour by want of materials to make out a meaning, Woodhouse 

 is a favourite writer ; still more so with those who like to think about 

 the first principles of their subject. But to those others who parse 

 instead of comprehending, and think they have made out an author as 

 soon as they see how his sentence runs, he is repulsive ; and still more 

 so to those who are rather bent upon using mathematical symbols 

 than understanding them. 



We do not mention his papers in the ' Philosophical Transactions,' 

 as their principal points are repeated in his separate writings, which 

 are as follows : 



1. 'The Principles of Analytical Calculation,' 4to, Cambridge, 1803. 

 In this work, which is rather of the descriptive and controversial, 

 than of tho elementary character, Woodhouse called the attention of 

 his university to the language and first principles of the Continental 

 analysis, with strong recommendation of the former, and a searching 

 criticism on the latter. He passes under review the methods of 

 infinitesimals, limits, expansions, &c., exposes the total insufficiency 

 of the method of Lagrauge, and gives his own views of the mode of 

 establishing the differential calculus. He had evidently, as often 

 happens to those who strictly investigate received systems, acquired, 

 if not an absolute scepticism as to the possibility of any rigour at the 

 outset, at least an instinctive habit of objection. Though differing 

 from several of his positive conclusions, particularly those which he 

 comes to on the character of the theory of limits, we must always 

 admire the sound thought and clear exposition which distinguish the 

 work throughout. Considering the time and place at which it was 

 published, it is a rare instance of felicity in the choice of a subject 

 and of the manner of treating it. 



Among the other qualifications of a controversialist, Woodhouse had 

 a power of sarcasm, which, though in private life, it only went the 

 length of what is called " dry humour," yet appeared now and then in 

 his writings in a manner which would have made an opponent careful 

 what he advanced. 



2. 'Elements of Trigonometry,' 8vo, Cambridge, 1809 (several sub- 

 sequent editions). Of this work Dr. Peacock says that " it more than 

 any other contributed to revolutionise the mathematical studies of 

 this country. It was a work, independently of its singularly oppor- 

 tune appearance, of great merit, and such as is not likely, notwith- 

 standing the crowd of similar publications in the present day, to be 

 speedily superseded in the business of education ; . . . and, like all 

 other works of this author, it is written in a manner well calculated to 

 fix strongly the attention of the student, and to make him reflect 

 attentively upon the particular processes which are followed, and 

 upon the reasons for their adoption." The 'Analytical Calculations' 

 was an appeal to the teacher, but the ' Trigonometry ' was addressed 

 to the student. It excited the opposition of those who were attached 

 to the old system, and paved the way for the subsequent introduction 

 of the differential calculus, the works on which must have been 

 accompanied by treatises on trigonometry adapted to themselves, if 

 Woodhouse had not supplied the want. 



3. 'A Treatise on Isoperimetrical Problems, and the Calculus of 

 Variations,' 8vo, Cambridge, 1810. There is something peculiar to 

 himself in every work which Woodhouse produced. The mode of 

 writing scientific history, which Delambre afterwards adopted, is here 

 seen for the first time : it consists in taking up the subject in such a 

 manner that its history in the hands of each individual is separate 

 from the rest; accordingly we have both the history of the subject 

 and of each of its promoters in his connection with it. Woodhouse 

 puts distinctly before the reader the very problems, methods, and 

 notation of the several writers on the calculus of variations, from the 

 earliest isolated problems of the Bernoullis, to the connected and com- 



paratively finished methods of Lagrange. This book will not pass 

 away like an elementary work ; it is a history. 



4. 'A Treatise on Astronomy,' 8vo, Cambridge, 1812. This was 

 always intended as a first volume, and the second, published in 1818, 

 is on the theory of gravitation, which is somewhat improperly called 

 ' Physical Astronomy.' But in the subsequent editions the first 

 volume was enlarged into two, which were obliged to be called 

 parts; so that we now have vol. i., parts 1 and 2, on astronomy, and 

 vol. ii., on physical astronomy, or the theory of gravitation. Of the 

 latter it is only necessary to say, that it was the first work in which 

 the student waa introduced to what had been done abroad since the 

 death of Newton, and that it does not retain its place only because the 

 subject has advanced both abroad and at home. But the first voluma 

 still remains perhaps the most remarkable work on astronomy of its 

 century. This distinction it owes to the manner in which Woodhouse 

 makes the reader feel that he is in the very observatory itself. The 

 methods are as perfect as if they had been directions to a computer, a 

 quality which writers who have to explain those methods mathe- 

 matically frequently do not give them ; the examples seem as if they 

 were real ones, as if some astronomer had had to put down the actual 

 figures, and the very observations which are cited are made to smell 

 of the instruments which gave them. Many theoretical works on 

 astronomy may make a reader think he would like the practical part 

 of the science, in which he may afterwards find himself mistaken : 

 but Woodhouse's treatise caunot deceive him in this respect ; he will 

 or will not relish practical astronomy according as he is or is not 

 pleased with Woodhouse's book. At least the preceding is more near 

 the truth of this book than of any other. The secret was, that the 

 author was an expert practical astronomer, as well as an original 

 thinker on first principles, who was able to change places with the 

 student in an unusual degree. He was very fond of the subject of 

 practical astronomy, a taste which is not always found in the mathe- 

 matician, and rarely indeed in one of a speculative turn. Had the 

 observatory been built before the failure of his health, he would pro- 

 bably have become as distinguished in the promotion of astronomy as 

 he was in its explanation : as it was, he had only time to discover the 

 injurious effect of the diagonal braces of the transit instrument. 



The character which must be given of the several writings of Wood- 

 house entitles us to suppose that the revolution in our mathematical 

 studies, of which he was the first promoter, would not have been 

 brought about so easily if its earliest advocacy had fallen into less 

 judicious hands. For instance had he not, when he first called atten- 

 tion to the continental analysis, exposed the unsoundness of some of 

 the usual methods in establishing it more like an opponent than a 

 partisan, those who were adverse from the change would probably 

 have made a successful stand against the whole upon the ground 

 which, as it was, Woodhouse had already made his own. From the 

 nature of his subjects, his reputation can never equal that of the first 

 seer of a comet with the world at large : but the few who can appre- 

 ciate what he did will always regard him as one of the most philoso- 

 phical thinkers and useful guides of his time. 



WOODHOUSELEE, LORD. [TYTLER, A. F.] 



WOODVILLE, WILLIAM, was born at Cockermouth in 1752. 

 He served an apprenticeship to an apothecary, and afterwards studied 

 medicine at Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1775. After studying 

 some time in the medical schools of the Continent, he returned to 

 Cockermouth, where he commenced the practice of his profession. 

 He continued there five or six years, and then removed to London. 

 Here he was appointed physician to the Middlesex Dispensary, and in 

 1792 he was elected Physician to the Small-Pox Hospital. Having 

 paid considerable attention to the plants yielding medicines, he pub- 

 lished in 1790 a large work, in four quarto volumes, entitled ' Medical 

 Botany,' which consisted of a series of plates representing medical 

 plants, and containing an account of their natural history and uses. 

 This work is imperfect both in the drawings and descriptions of plants, 

 but it was a valuable work at the time it was published, and has led 

 to the production of better works on the same subject. In 1796 

 Woodville commenced the publication of a work entitled a ' History of 

 the Small-Pox in Great Britain." This work was never completed, on 

 account of the introduction of vaccination about this time by Jeuner. 

 Dr. Woodville had good opportunities of investigating the claims of 

 Jenner's discovery to confidence, and came at first to a conclusion 

 unfavourable to vaccination. He however continued to make observa- 

 tions, and before his death became a strenuous advocate for the intro- 

 duction of vaccination. He died in 1805. 



WOODWARD, JOHN, the author of 'A Natural History of the 

 Earth,' and the founder of the professorship of geology at Cambridge, 

 was born in Derbyshire in 1665. He studied comparative anatomy 

 and natural history at the seat of Sir Ralph Dutton in Gloucestershire, 

 under the direction of Dr. Barwick, and received his degree of M.D. 

 from Archbishop Tenison. Woodward's attention to fossils was first 

 excited by the shelly limestones of Gloucestershire, from which he 

 conceived the notions of the successive deposition of strata which he 

 afterwards applied to the explanation of the structure of the earth. 

 Previous to 1695 he had, by travelling over the greatest part of En"-- 

 land, made himself acquainted with the " present condition of the 

 earth and all bodies contained in it ; " collected the " plants, insects, 

 sea, river, and land-shells ; " examined the " water of mines, grottoes," 



