George Francis FitzGerald. 153 



merit and character of some recent Physicists, notably of FitzGerald, 

 in whom those who knew him best could detect least flaw. But 

 foreigners came under the same influence when they were brought 

 into contact with him, witness Ostwald at Leeds, and Lenard at 

 Liverpool ; it may be doubted whether there ever was a man of 

 equal scientific power, agility of thought, and selflessness, combined. 



George Francis FitzGerald was born on August 3, 1851, and died 

 on February 22, 1901, before he was 50 years of age. 



He was the second son of the Eev. William FitzGerald, D.D., 

 afterwards Lord Bishop of Cork, and later of Killaloe : being at the 

 time Rector of St. Anne's, Dublin. His mother was a sister of 

 Dr. G. Johnstone Stoney, F.R.S. He did not go to school, but was 

 educated at home under stimulating circumstances, and to this fact 

 may be attributed some of the retention of his innate originality. 



He was not specially remarkable for early ability, as he did not 

 possess any conspicuous faculty for acquiring languages or other 

 learning involving verbal memory; he was good at arithmetic, 

 algebra, and Euclid, of an inventive turn of mind mechanically, and 

 skilful with his fingers in sewing, knitting, and such work; also he 

 developed considerable athletic powers, though he was never specially 

 competent at games. 



While still only 16 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he 

 soon took a high place ; and on obtaining his degree, in 1871, he won 

 the University Studentship, with two First Senior Moderatorships 

 in Mathematics and Experimental Science. 



During six years of post-graduate study for the Fellowship, he laid 

 the foundation of his deep and wide knowledge of Physical Science, 

 by study of the classical writings of some of the Masters in 

 Mathematics and Physics, notably Lagrange, Laplace, Hamilton, and 

 MacCullagh. He also made some study of Metaphysics, and was 

 permanently attracted by the philosophy of Bishop Berkeley. 



In 1881 he was elected to the Erasmus Smith Professorship of 

 Natural and Experimental Philosophy, vacant by the death of 

 Prof. Leslie ; and work gradually began to accumulate upon him. 

 Fortunately he was able to turn his mind readily and persistently to 

 anything that was brought before him, and in the midst of interrup- 

 tion could sit absorbed in either reading or jotting down calculations, 

 sometimes of considerable complexity. But the leisure for long 

 patient analysis was not his, nor did his genius altogether lie in this 

 direction : he was at his best when, under the stimulus of discussion, 

 his mind teemed with brilliant suggestions, some of which he at once 

 proceeded to test by rough quantitative calculation, for which he 

 was an adept in discerning the necessary data. The power of 

 grasping instantly all the bearings of a difficult problem was his to 



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