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Autobiographical Sketch of James Croll, LL.D., F.B.S., §c. With 



Memoir of his Life and Work, by James Campbell Irons, M.A. 



8vo. 550 pages, with two portraits. 1896. Stanford, London. 

 The autobiography (pages 9-41) given in James Croll's own 

 words, as dictated to his wife three years before his death, 

 contains the principal incidents of his life, as recollected and 

 thought over himself, down to 1887. His chronic headaches, 

 pressure of work, and disinclination for the task allowed of no 

 diffuse treatment of the many interesting points in this brief per- 

 sonal history. 



In the body of the book Mr. J. C. Irons, with the intimate 

 knowledge of a warm and sympathetic friend, has elaborated this 

 short life-sketch, enlarging it with collateral information from 

 friends and correspondents into a very complete biography of 

 James Croll, and a useful and interesting resume of his intellectual 

 work. 



In his youth he had very little schooling and much hard work ; 

 first, in his father's croft, and afterwards as a wheelwright and 

 joiner. He was not a sharp lad ; but a taste for reading came 

 when he got the first number of the ' Penny Magazine,' at Perth, 

 in 1832, Dick's 'Christian Philosopher,' and Joyce's 'Scientific 

 Dialogues.' Making a systematic attempt to learn something of 

 the physical sciences, he was more attracted to the laws and con- 

 ditions on which their facts and details depend than to the results 

 and phenomena themselves. Thus directing his attention mainly 

 to general principles, he found himself better able to grasp the 

 meaning and bearings of the subject of study ; and he states that 

 his early acquaintance with the general principles of physical 

 science was of great service in his researches in after years. He 

 felt, however, that the strong natural tendency toward abstract 

 thinking somehow unsuited him for the practical details of daily 

 work. 



Habitually meditative, with strong religious sentiments, and 

 brought up in the thoughtful communion of his Scotch co-religio- 

 nists, he felt keen interest in the controversies between Armi- 

 nianism and Calvinism, to*the former of which he was attached. 

 But after careful study of Edwards's work on ' Free Will,' and 

 Tappan's ineffectual criticism of that book, and after having "gone 

 over thirty or forty treatises on the freewill controversy," he 

 found Edwards's conclusions to be sound ; and "became convinced 

 that some moderate form of Calvanism was nearest the truth, not 

 only of philosophy, but also of Scripture." Had he been able to 

 afford it, he would have been inclined to devote his time to the 

 study of Philosophy, his mind having been benefitted and ideas 

 enlarged, first by Edwards and then by Kant. 



A long-standing disease of the left elbow-joint became too bad 

 in 1846 for manual labour : and James Croll found a friend (Dr. 

 Irons) in Perth, who helped him with stock and advice to set up 

 as a tea-dealer at Elgin. In 1848 he married Isabella Macdonald 

 of Torres. "With strong and persistent effort he gave up smoking; 



