length in oil by S. Laurence, about 1850; a full-length in oil of Whewell under thirty, painter unknown; a small oil painting by Mr. Carpenter; a chalk drawing of Whewell, and one of his second wife, by A. M. Solomée. In the college hall is a small portrait in oil of Whewell as a young man by Lonsdale. In the college is a marble bust, by G. H. Bailey, bequeathed by Whewell to the college. In the antechapel is a marble statue, by T. Woolner, erected by the college after Whewell's death, with a Latin inscription by William Hepworth Thompson [q. v.], his successor.
Whewell was a man of splendid physical development. A Cambridge legend told of a prize-fighter who had exclaimed, ‘What a man was lost when they made you a parson!’ His face showed power rather than delicacy, and a massive brow gave special dignity to his appearance. His masculine vigour implied certain unattractive qualities. His friend Hare felt it a duty to remonstrate with him upon his ‘vehemence’ and impatience, and held up as examples the sweetness of William Wilberforce, Bishop Otter, and Manning. Whewell received the advice good-temperedly, and admitted that in so ‘eminent a station’ as the mastership he was especially bound not to be ‘overbearing’ (Stair Douglas, pp. 209, 235, 285–92). He did not, however, quite admit the facts alleged in proof. He loved an argument, and his position as a great man in a small circle tended to make argument onesided. He was popular as a tutor; but for some time he provoked a good deal of hostility as master. In early days he had little chance of acquiring social refinement; and, though he was anxious to be hospitable, his sense of the dignity of his position led to a formality which made the drawing-room of the lodge anything but a place of easy sociability. In later years age and sorrow made him conspicuously milder, and the object not only of the pride but of the warm affection of the university. Though rough at times, he was from the first magnanimous; he never cherished resentment and admitted defeat frankly, and received the opinions of young and insignificant persons with remarkable courtesy. Few men, too, have had more friends or retained their friendships more carefully. He had many controversies, but no personal quarrels. His domestic life was perfect, and he always respected and attracted women.
Whewell's influence in Cambridge was for many years of great importance. In particular he did more than any one to introduce some interest in philosophy (see Professor Sidgwick's article in Mind for April 1876, quoted by Mrs. Stair Douglas, pp. 411–12). Though a conservative as to the constitution of the colleges, he was aware of many of the weak points of the Cambridge system, and tried to widen the course and raise the aims of the teachers. He tried, as he said, to introduce an ‘anti-Lockean philosophy’ (Stair Douglas, p. 248). His success was limited by the character of his own mind. His books upon the ‘Inductive Sciences’ made a mark; but one result was the impulse, in the opposite direction, which he gave to J. S. Mill (for Mill's acknowledgment of the help derived from Whewell see Mill's Logic, preface, and Autobiography, p. 223). During Whewell's mastership Mill, rather than Whewell, was the accepted guide at Cambridge. The famous remark of Sydney Smith—‘science is his forte and omniscience his foible’—made (Todhunter, i. 410) to Samuel Rogers at a breakfast-party, may partly explain this. Whewell began as a man of science. Todhunter, a very competent judge, testifies to the ‘accuracy and fidelity’ of the first edition of his ‘History’ (Todhunter, i. 103). In later editions he left many errors, partly because his many occupations made the work of correction irksome, but also because ‘he had wandered from science to philosophy,’ and did not keep up with the later progress of discovery. The book necessarily became belated in many parts. Whewell meanwhile scarcely became a philosopher. He had studied Kant, and accepts Kant's theory of space and time. For later German developments he had nothing but contempt, and his friend Hare and others could never induce him even to take an interest in Coleridge. In his controversies with Mill he seems to have the advantage in some points from his greater familiarity with science and from his knowledge of Kant, whom Mill disregarded. But his constructive theory represents the old-fashioned form of ‘intuitionism,’ against which Mill carried on a successful warfare. His theory about ‘ideas’ and ‘facts’ is scarcely coherent, and certainly did not obtain acceptance. His theology is of the variety represented by Paley and the Bridgewater ‘Treatises;’ and, though a man of very strong and sincere religious sentiment, he did not succeed in speaking to his generation. He seems to have stood aside, as a good old-fashioned churchman, from the religious controversies of the time. He was more directly interested in ethical speculations; and his writings became text-books at Cambridge, and were naturally studied by young men reading for Trinity fellowships. They are per-
