1033 



WHEWELL, REV. WILLIAM, D.D. 



WIN SLOW, FORBES, M.D. 



1031 



firmed the selection of magnesian limestone for building the New 

 Palace of Westminster, have been noticed. The physical and chemical 

 examination of the specimens of stone collected, having been con- 

 signed to the late Professor Daniell and his colleague Professor 

 Wheatstono, the requisite experiments on their mechanical and hygro- 

 metric properties were conducted by the latter. 



* WHEWELL, REV. WILLIAM, D.D., F.R.S., Master of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, was born in 1795, at Lancaster, where his father 

 was a joiner, and intended to place his son with himself at 'the bench.' 

 But fortunately he had received an excellent education of its degree at 

 the Free Grammar Shool of his native town, the head master of 

 which, perceiving the mathematical talent evinced by his pupil, with 

 his father's assent, took measures for giving him an university educa- 

 tion, and enabled him to enter Trinity College, Cambridge, where he 

 graduated as B.A. in 1816, afterwards became a Fellow of his college, 

 and was for many years an eminent and successful tutor. In 1828 he was 

 appointed Professor of Mineralogy, which office he retained until 1832. 

 In 1838 he became Professor of Moral Theology or Casuistry, retaining 

 the chair until he took the office of Vice-Chancellor of the University, 

 in 1855. He succeeded to the Mastership of Trinity College, which he 

 still holds, in 1841. It has been stated that not long after the great 

 improvement in the mathematical education of Cambridge, based on 

 the introduction of the methods of the French masters of analysis, 

 had been fully accomplished and its effects realised, it induced a 

 tendency in the students to disregard the definite study of physics 

 and the knowledge of nature, in the implicit belief that they were 

 virtually superseded by mathematics, and that the latter included 

 everything necessary to be known of the former. It is also said that 

 one of the first of the distinguished graduates who perceived, and in 

 his own case rectified this error, by the diligent study of physics and 

 natural science, was Mr. Whewell; and further, that the study of 

 mineralogical science and crystallography, by which he was prepared 

 for holding the chair of mineralogy at Cambridge, was at once a part 

 and one of the first fruits of this corrective system. Though not pre- 

 sent at the first meeting of the British Association, he was nominated 

 on the sub-committee (or section) of Mineralogy, and also one of the 

 two vice-presidents of the Association for the second meeting held at 

 Oxford, and requested to present to it a report on the state and pro- 

 gress of Mineralogy. This he produced accordingly, and it forms a 

 part of the first volume of the Reports of the Association, being 

 second to none contained in the remarkable collection of reports on 

 the progress of various branches of mathematical, physical, and practi- 

 cal knowledge obtained and published by the Association. It was 

 afterwards incorporated by the author into his ' History of the Inductive 

 Sciences,' to which we shall return. 



We have seen, in effect, what an important part in his own university 

 Dr. Whewell's unusual combination of extensive and multifarious know- 

 ledge, with a power of intellect more generally found concentrated on 

 a few objects only, enabled him to take. A similar course in the 

 Cambridge Philosophical Society was almost inseparable from this. 

 But he has taken an equally prominent part in the Royal Society (of 

 which he became a Fellow on the 13th of April 1820,) and in the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which latter he 

 was President in the year 1841, at the Plymouth meeting. At the third 

 meeting, held at Cambridge in 1833, he had delivered an address on 

 the desiderata and [prospects of the Association and of science. The 

 fifth volume of the Reports contains hia ' Report on the recent pro- 

 gress and present condition of the mathematical theories of electricity, 

 magnetism, and heat.' The subject of the Tides, equally important in 

 its philosophical and practical relations, has received the most valuable 

 accessions from Dr. Whewell, whose discussions of tide-observations 

 (many of which were made by direction of the British Association at 

 his instigation) will be found in a series of papers in the ' Philosophical 

 Transactions.' For two years Dr. Whewell filled the chair of the 

 Geological Society, directing the Fellows, in their papers and discus- 

 sions, to the definite and comprehensive principles suggested, in appli- 

 cation to Geology, by the peculiar culture of his own mind, and 

 taking, in his annual addresses, equally valuable, broad, and philoso- 

 phical views of geological theory and causation. 



Several of Dr. Whewell's separate works and their contents have 

 been alluded to in a former article, when noticing the contributions to 

 science of one of his accomplished colleagues at Cambridge [WILLIS, 

 REV. R.]. He is the author of many works in the tutorial series of 



the university on various departments of mathematics and physics. 

 But the more considerable productions of his pen are the following : 

 'Astronomy and General Physics considered with reference to Natural 

 Theology ; being the Third Bridgewater Treatise,' London, 1833. In 

 this may be recognised the rudiments of much that the author has 

 since produced, as well as an earlier condition of the style matured in 

 the works next to be mentioned. ' History of the Inductive Sciences, 

 from the earliest to the present times, 1 3 vols., London, 1837 ; ' The 

 Philosophy ofthe Inductive Sciences, founded upon their History,' 2 

 vols., London, 1840, 'The Elements of Morality, including Polity,' 2 

 vols., London, 1855. 



On the first two works of this list, considered as a whole, Professor 

 James Forbes, F.R.S., the successor of Playfair, in the chair of natural 

 philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, (in his Dissertation on 

 the progress of mathematical and physical science from 1755 to 1850, 

 in the eighth edition of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,') remarks, ' One 

 attempt a bold and successful one has been made, in our own day, 

 to unite the history of science and the logic of inductive discovery, I 

 mean the History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. An 

 English philosopher of wonderful versatility, industry, and power has 

 erected a permanent monument to his reputation in a voluminous work 

 bearing the preceding title.' They are also the subject of a celebrated 

 article in the ' Quarterly Review,' by Sir John Herschel, lately repub- 

 lished in his volumesjof Essays. A well-known work, which has excited 

 much controversy, on the Plurality of Worlds, has been very generally 

 attributed to Dr. Whewell, but, as far as we know, its authorship has 

 been neither admitted nor denied by him. 



*WINSLOW, FORBES, M.D., a distinguished physician and writer 

 on psychology, was educated for the medical profession hi London, 

 and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England 

 in 1835. He is also a graduate in medicine of King's College, Aber- 

 deen, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; 

 and he has received the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law from 

 the University of Oxford. One of his earliest published works indi- 

 cates the direction of his mind. It is entitled 'An Essay on the 

 Application of the Principles of Phrenology to the Elucidation and 

 the Cure of Insanity.' This was published hi 1831. About this 

 time he also published two manuals for the use of students, 'A 

 Manual of Osteology,' and ' A Manual of Practical Midwifery.' Hia 

 next work was one which resulted from the literary bent of his genius. 

 It was called ' Physic and Physicians.' It consisted of biographical 

 and literary sketches of the history of medicine, and produced a con- 

 siderable sensation at the time it was published. It indicated clearly 

 the workings of a mind that was studying with eagerness the road to 

 success. He afterwards published a work more particularly directed 

 to the speciality which he afterwards so successfully practised. This 

 work was entitled ' The Anatomy of Suicide ; being an attempt to 

 establish the connection between the Desire to commit Suicide and 

 certain physical conditions of the Brain and Abdominal Organs.' From 

 this time Dr. Winslow devoted himself entirely to the treatment of 

 insanity, and opened an asylum at Sussex House, Hammersmith, of 

 which he was resident superintendent for many years. His consultation 

 practice however increasing largely, he has recently taken a house in 

 London, still carrying on the establishment at Hammersmith. Besides 

 the above works, he is also author of the following, devoted to the 

 subject of insanity : ' ' On the Preservation of the Health of the 

 Body and Mind ; ' ' On the Plea of Insanity in Criminal Cases ; ' ' On 

 the Act for the Better Regulation and Care of the Insane, with Notes ; ' 

 ' Synopsis of the Lunacy Act.' In 1837 he was appointed Lettsonian 

 Lecturer to the Medical Society of London, and on this occasion 

 delivered a course of lectures on insanity, which have since been pub- 

 lished. In 1848 he projected and became proprietor and editor of the 

 ' Quarterly Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology.' 

 He has contributed extensively to the pages of this journal, and through 

 it has been the means of diffusing a large amount of sound opinion on 

 the subject of insanity and its treatment. As a great principle on 

 which Dr. Winslow has laid the greatest stress, is the fact that there 

 can be no derangement of the mind without some antecedent derange- 

 ment of the body. To this subject he has devoted many papers 

 which will be found more especially in the weekly medical periodicals. 



In 1853 Dr. Winslow was elected president of the London Medical 

 Society. He is now (1857) president of the Association of the Medical 

 Officers of Hospitals and Asylums for the Insane. 



THE END. 



