Old Friends at Cambridge and ElsewhereClark, John Willis
History
Old Friends at Cambridge and Elsewhere
Clark, John Willis
University of Cambridge -- History
The Bridgewater Treatise appeared in 1833, a year in which he delivered
an address to the British Association, at its meeting at Cambridge;
contributed a paper _On the Use of Definitions_ to the Philological
Museum; and increased his stock of architectural and geological
knowledge by tours with Messrs Rickman, Sedgwick, and Airy. He was now
generally recognized as the first authority on scientific language; and
we find Professor Faraday deferring to him on the nomenclature of
electricity. In 1834 he invented an _anemometer_, or instrument for
measuring the force and direction of the wind; it was employed for some
time at York, by Professor Phillips, but has since been superseded by
more convenient contrivances.
The real meaning of his longing for leisure soon became manifest. In
July 1834 he expounds to his friend Mr Jones the plan of the _History
and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, which he was prosecuting
vigorously. This great work occupied him, _almost_ to the exclusion of
other matters, for the whole of 1835 and 1836. We say _almost_, because,
even at this time, with his usual habit of taking up some new subject
just before he had completed an extensive labour on an old one, he was
beginning to study systematic morality, and in 1835 published a preface
to Sir James Mackintosh’s _Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical
Philosophy_, a subject which he further considered in 1837, when he
preached before the University _Four Sermons on the Foundation of
Morals_. In this year he succeeded Mr Lyell as President of the
Geological Society, an office which must have been given to him rather
in recognition of his general scientific attainments and the work he had
done in the kindred science of mineralogy, than on account of any
special publications on geology. He seems to have made an excellent
President. Sir Charles Lyell[4] speaks of him with enthusiasm, and
points out his sacrifices of time, not only in attending the meetings of
the Society, but in supervising the details of its organization. The
extra work which the office involved is thus described in a letter to
his sister, dated November 18, 1837:
‘My old complaint of being overwhelmed with business, especially at this
time of year, is at present, I think, rather more severe than ever. For,
besides all my usual employments, I have to go to London two days every
fortnight as President of the Geological Society, and am printing a book
which I have not yet written, so that I am obliged often to run as fast
as I can to avoid the printers riding over me, so close are they at my
heels. I am, in addition to all this, preaching a course of sermons
before the University; but this last employment, though it takes time
and thought, rather sobers and harmonizes my other occupations than adds
anything to my distraction.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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