New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-07-16
WILLIAM sPOTTISWOODE.


LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
rvpox THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBUSE.I
LONDON, June %.
There must be many Americans, as there are many
Epelishmen, who will hear with a certain surprise
that in the death of William spottiswoode the world
has lost one of the most brilliant and penetrating
fntsllects of our time. He was known to men Oh
.c;ence everywhere; excepting to men of science
and to the wide circle of his own friends he was nor
suppose, thoroughly known, even in England. Inc
president of the Royal Society, indeed, can never
be an inconsidelable parsonage. but Mr. spottis
woode was chosen to that Office only four years ago.
and the Office added nothing to his intellectual
stature or his real distinction. 1t only set the sea-
of scientific approval and applause on his previous
work 1t is the blue rbaDd of science and OF science
in ITS severe and most arduous FORM CONFERRED upon
a man xUbose name was not very familiar to the
public it makes him the recognized ana omciai
Chief of body which takes no account VI hoi0
popular fame Universal suffrage might nave cnosen
Mr.. Huxley OF Mr.. Tyndall president. ana elther %
them would add to the lustre OF the ONCE. nu' MI
HUXLEY and Mr. Tyndall concurred heartily win
the great majority of the most accomplished sceh-
fists IN the nomination of Mr.. Spottiswoode.
don't know that Mr.. Spottiswoode despised
FAME or popuIarity, / am certain he never sought
either. His work lay among the most apstruse
prohems and the most difficult branches OF science
He never undertook to popularlze his studies tnoy
were of a nature which forbade such an effort. tie
maid little heed to the arts of the lectureroom vi
the platform He published little which was
addressed to a general audience. III you want 70
find the fruit of thirty years of profound study
and research, you must 60 to the Journals OIL 'no
ROYAL Society or the Astronomical SOCIETY," OF 10
uurely scientific periodicals. He was matnema
tician of a high order. During great part OF DIS
life he devoted himself to mathematics. He began
NV taking first class IN mathematics at OXFORD,
which answers to a wrangership at Cambridge.
From that time on though plunged at once on leaT-
ins the University into business, he remained
student. and explored the most hidden regions OF
tina most exact of sciences contributing say
tbose who wero entitled to judge ON SUCH
a question, much that was new and OF great value
to mathematical study. remember hearing some
wears aeo that Spottiswoode was intended by his
father who was head of great printing es-
adjustment, for life wholly apart from business.
But his father died suddenly, leaving his business
in state of disorder. The son renounced instantly
all his schemes of independent study, reor-
xanized the business. set it upon stable footng,
and before many years had passed had regained ana
doubled tho lost fortune. He never Quilted ousl-
meas after that To the day of his death he contin-
some hundreds of workmen under him. and l may
IA we'll say here % anywhere that he solved
q problem as difficult an anything in his favorlte
etudv. that of friendly relations with the men ne
employed. He did it by treating them as men ike
himself He was not content with paying them
good wages He looked after their interests. their
welfare their families that they had the means
of living comfortably. and of mental and moral I'M
provement. Once or twice year ne invited the
whole of them to his beautiful country seat Comeo
Bank. and they were his guests from tho moment
they entered tho railway station till they lett IL
again on their return. He threw open his house
and grounds to them. and they spent such days
amid the lovely scenery of Kent and amid such sur
roundings, as few workingmen in London ever know
much about. / don't suppose they set type the
worse for that
The range of Mr. Spottswoode's scientific studies
must be left for his colleagues to describe. can
only add that be was not less eminent in physics
than in pure mathematics He originated methods
in both. and without original work Of very high
merit it is needless to say the scientific world woud
never have accepted him as a chief. In electrical
studies he went very far, and in his researches on
the polarization of light he had perhaps no rival
His activity led him into fields remote from those
where he was best known. The whole scheme OF
modern science, the history of its progress the re-
lar to him. He was traveller. and wrote on the
applicatron of the Calculus of Probabilities
to Physical Geography. One OF the few
popular books he ever published was a narrative OF
q Journey through Eastern Russia in 1856. lie was
skilled astronomer and skilled hnguist and IL Is
recorded of him that the Asiatic Society endeavored
TO induce him to edit great work on Oriental as
tronomy. for which his mathematical knowledge
aud his familiarity with Oriental languages alike
fitted him.
Perhaps his address before the British Association
AT Dublin in 1878 revealed other qualities viii Oh
were surprise to some of those who knew Mr.
Spottiswoode we'll 1t was marked by an imagi-
native power, by capacity for speculative inquiry
into the highest subjects and by poetic eloquence
of which one can only say that they seem to have
been held in check at other tunes by the dfier and
more purely scientific studies to which he gave up
all of what most men would have seized on as
leisure He had. as has often been said of him,
passion for symmetry and it came out in this ad-
dress with singular effect. He stated the case for
mathematics as only lover could state It, lie
eradcated its place in thought and its relation to
other branches of mental effort in terms OF which
!. the precision and beauty were alike
remarkable. His style Is not perhaps likely
TO arrest or to fascinate who comes upon 1T
suddenly in the hurry of newspaper reading, but
may be permitted to quote passage:
While. on the one hand, the mathematician accords
TO his noighbors full liberty to regard the unknown
In whatever way they are led by the noblest powers
that they possess, so, on the other he claims an
equal right to draw clear line of dsmarcation bo-
tween that which is a matter of knowledge
and that which is at all events, something else,
and TO treat the enc category fairly claiming our
assent; tho other as open to further evidence. And
vet when he sees around him those whose aspira-
lions are so fair. whose impulses SO strong whose
receptive faculties sensitive to give objective
reality TO what is often but reflex from themselves,
or a protective image of their own experience, he
will be willing to admit that there are influences
which he cannot as yet either fathom or measure,