Preface ix 



Numerous biographies of Cavendish have been published. He was one 

 of the select circle of foreign associates of the Institute of France; and 

 French interest in his work, stimulated by its close relations with that of 

 Lavoisier, was reflected in memoirs by Cuvier in the loges Historiques de 

 I' Academic, vt>l. i and by Biot in the Biographic Universelle, vol. vn. These 

 and other biographies are drawn upon by Dr George Wilson in the very 

 thorough Life of Cavendish (pp. 478), including an analysis of his chemical 

 work, which was undertaken under the auspices of the Cavendish Society, 

 founded in 1846, and appeared in 1851 as one of the early volumes of their 

 publications. 



The biographical sketch contributed by Dr Thomas Young to the sup- 

 plement of the Encyclopaedia Britannica about 1820 has been reprinted 

 here as an Appendix. Young must have been personally well acquainted 

 with Cavendish, and no one was better qualified to form a contemporary 

 judgment on his career. 



The portrait prefixed to the present volume is said to have been con- 

 structed from surreptitious sketches made by the artist W. Alexander at 

 a dinner of the Royal Society Club. The original is in the print room of the 

 British Museum, where it was re-discovered by Charles Tomlinson, F.R.S. 

 who had an engraving made from it. This engraving has been reproduced 

 as a frontispiece to Wilson's Life, and many times since. The present photo- 

 graphic impression has been taken from the original picture, by permission 

 of the authorities of the British Museum. 



It has been the custom, even among Cavendish's admirers, to brand him 

 as misanthropic. But there is surely another side to this judgment. The 

 cultivation of the highest domains of physical science is rarely consistent 

 with dispersal of interest in other directions. The tracking out of great 

 discoveries which will be a possession to the human race for all time has 

 indeed to be its own supreme intellectual satisfaction; and once an in- 

 vestigator has realized, in however modest a way, his capacity for such 

 achievement, he can feel that he is serving humanity in the most perfect 

 manner open to him by concentrating upon that work. Yet the temptation 

 to continual postponement of ordinary social intercourse inevitably 

 involves increasing isolation, and growing habits of solitude. As already 

 noted, there is no evidence that Cavendish's researches aimed at his 

 personal gratification alone : if they had not been adequately recorded by 

 him they could not have been recovered so completely: and it is easy to 

 understand how the driving force of his curiosity and conscious power 

 would impel him to the exploration of new fields, in temporary preference 

 to the final polishing of work already achieved. If he spent his life in 

 compelling the phenomena of physical nature to submit to exact measure 

 and weight, it was not from a special passion for such work, for its own 

 sake, but as the one means of assuring an adequate foundation for sciences 

 then being born : in all directions he was opening up and securing brilliant 



