Ivii 



' Elements of Morality,' his ' Lectures on the History of Moral Philo- 

 sophy in England,' and more especially his ' Lectures on Systematic 

 Morality ' (1846). The two views are no donbt ultimately reconcileable, 

 or rather essentially those of one body of truth approached from dif- 

 ferent ends of the vista : since if it could be shown that any legitimate 

 conclusion as to moral duty drawn from the a priori system were in- 

 compatible with the production of general happiness and wellbeing, 

 such conclusion could not but be deemed an insuperable objection to 

 its truth; and since the ultimate reference to the enlightenment and 

 guidance of reason (as distinct from innate or inspired intuition) — if it 

 have any meaning at all — can only mean a reference to what experience 

 teaches the general reason of mankind to expect as the probable result 

 of any proposed course of action on the general happiness. But the 

 difficulty is far greater to ascend to the general axioms of morality 

 from the facts of history and social life in the w^ay of induction, in the 

 face of so much acJmowledged confusion in the results of human action 

 in the more complicated affairs of life, than to start from an a priori and 

 divinely inspired principle of right, interfered with in its application 

 by the disturbing agency of passion and ignorance, in rendering an 

 account of so much evil intermixed with so much good. JN^or does this 

 consideration appear to have been altogether without its weight in his 

 choice of a starting-point, if we may judge from a passage in the w^ork 

 last cited (Systematic Morality, p. 133. Ch. 29 et seq.). The just 

 celebrity of these works, and of his philosophical treatises, with his 

 other eminent claims to scientific distinction, procured him the honour 

 of nomination by the Erench Academy as a correspondent in the depart- 

 ment of " Sciences Morales et Politiques — Section de Philosophic." 



In 1839 he retired from the tutorship of his college, devoting him- 

 self thenceforwards entirely to those pursuits which he felt to be more 

 congenial to the natural bent of his genius and to his personal habits, 

 than the practical routine of education. What, and how^ expansive, and 

 at the same time how definite and sober w^ere his views on the sub- 

 ject of the higher education in general, and of tliat which ought to be 

 the more especial object of a University education, may be gathered 

 from a series of essays and treatises published from 1835 to 1845 on 

 this subject, one of which, a brief essay entitled ' Thoughts on the 

 Study of Mathematics as a part of a liberal education' (1835), in- 

 volved him in a controversy with a very formidable antagonist (if we 

 are not mistaken, the late Sir Wm. Hamilton), who, in an elaborate 

 article in the Edinburgh Heview (No. 126), laboured to show that 

 so far from being an essential and important means of cultivating 

 " the noblest faculties in the highest degree," such studies eff'ect this 

 purpose " at best in the most inadequate and precarious manner," and 

 that, in point of fact, they "have less claim to encouragement than 

 any other object of education." Dr. Whewell, however, Avas quite as 



