Annual Report of the Council. 241 



tions as " I am," " Thou art," the will, matter, ether, atoms, 

 force, causation, and law, in which the utterances, on those 

 subjects, of Boscovitch, Berkeley, Kant, Hume, Mill, 

 Huxley, Tyndall, H. Spencer, and others, are critically 

 examined and their authors commended, or mercilessly 

 lashed, according to their agreement or otherwise with 

 the writer's views. Mr. Kirkman spoke and wrote in 

 good and forcible English, never failing to define his 

 terms, and he was a great hater of the clouding of ideas, by 

 the use of vague, undefined, and misleading Latin and 

 Greek words. He often expressed the regret rather than 

 the boast that he never had a halfpenny spent on his edu- 

 cation. The Bolton Grammar School, it is presumed, was 

 free. Yet he made himself a good Latin and Greek 

 scholar, able to read and speak French and German. In his 

 earlier days he knew all the plants, grasses, mosses, and 

 fungi to be found within reach of his limited opportunities 

 for travel, and he could turn a very neat English verse. 



It is perhaps to be regretted that Mr. Kirkman's 

 polemical writings were deeply tinged with satire, of which, 

 possibly, the result was to afford excuse for silence on 

 the part of those attacked instead of evoking the replies he 

 so ardently wished for. However that may be, it is, we 

 believe, a fact that, to his outspoken attacks upon the 

 published utterances of some of the leading men of his day, 

 no attempt at answer was ever made. Mr. Kirkman died 

 on the 3rd February, 1895, within two months of attaining 

 the age of 89, and he was, at his death, contributing difficult 

 mathematical problems to the Educational Times. 



The following (along with others purely mathematical) 

 are among Mr. Kirkman's papers : — 



1. On a so-called Theory of Causation. 1862. 



2. Truth against Tradition. (A Lecture.) 1865. 



■ 3. Where is the Firmament that God created on the second day? (A 

 Lecture.) 1865. 



