xi 



be much better. T shall never lecture, speechify, or do anything 

 of that sort again if I can possibly help it." Apart from special 

 reasons, too, he found that the pressure of literary work left him no 

 spare energy whatever. Besides the logical exercises which he had 

 just finished and given to the world in a goodly volume, entitled 

 " Studies in Deductive Logic," he had a large treatise on practical 

 economy in full progress, a bibliography of logic in hand, and the 

 analysis of " Mill's Philosophy " on his mind. He was also pre- 

 paring a student's edition of the " Wealth of Nations," a preface to 

 the English translation of Cossa's " Gruide to Political Economy," 

 and a volume on " The State in Relation to Labour" for Macmillan's 

 English Citizen Series, besides new editions of some of his earlier 

 treatises and various minor articles for the Reviews. Much of this 

 work he actually accomplished before the waves closed over his 

 vanished life. But much also remained unaccomplished. The " Prin- 

 ciples of Economics," intended as a companion volume to the " Prin- 

 ciples of Science," he did not live to complete. 



In the summer of last year (1882) he went down with his wife and 

 family to spend five or six weeks at Bexhill, a small village on the 

 Sussex coast. Here he wrote an article on " Reflected Rainbows," 

 which appeared in the " Field Naturalist." This was his last printed 

 production. He had been accustomed in former years when visiting 

 Bexhill to bathe in the sea, and being a good swimmer and familiar 

 with the coast, he seems not to have apprehended any danger. But 

 this season his wife had dissuaded him from the exercise, for he was 

 not in good bodily health. The action of his heart was weak, and 

 the close and continued intension of his mind on absorbing studies 

 had much reduced his physical strength. On the morning of 

 Sunday the 13th of August, he was walking with his wife and 

 children on the beach, not far from the cottage on the cliff where 

 they were staying. A man of warm domestic affections, he loved to 

 be with the little ones, watching their innocent ways and participating 

 in their simple pleasures. At length he turned to leave them, saying 

 nothing of his intention to bathe ; perhaps he formed the intention on 

 his way back to the cottage, or after he had reached it. Taking a 

 towel out of the house, he descended the cliff on the other side, and 

 entered the water. No one else was bathing at the time, or within 

 sight of the place ; and the exact circumstances of his death can only 

 be conjectured. It is believed that the sudden shock of the cold 

 water, overstraining a weak heart, caused syncope, and that from the 

 first plunge he was quite powerless. Some boys passing along the 

 beach saw the body a few yards out, floating on the sea, face down- 

 wards, and at once gave the alarm. Among the persons attracted to 

 the spot was a labourer residing on the hill who, twenty minutes 

 before, had seen Jevons going down to the beach. When the body 



