Obituary notices of fellows deceased

Abstract

In the decease of Professor William Stanley Jevons, science and philosophy, both, have suffered a great loss. Since the departure of Boole and De Morgan—names which are ever on the tongue of philosophical mathematicians—no one has taken a more prominent part in the cultivation of symbolical logic than the accomplished man whose untimely death we have now to deplore. To the general public Professor Jevons was best known, perhaps, by his researches on our coal supply, his works on political economy, and his papers on various social questions of the day. His text-books for beginners have had an extensive circulation, and have proved highly serviceable to the class for which they were intended. His essays on currency and finance, on capital and labour, and on questions affecting the social life of the people, are also well known. But his reputation as a thinker and writer may be permitted to rest on his investigations into the principles of science and his contributions to a calculus of deductive reasoning. Bringing to his studies and researches not only a well furnished mind, but also a rare faculty for experiment and a taste for mechanical contrivances, he was enabled to embody the results of his intellectual labours in forms at once original and attractive. The instrument which he invented for the mechanical performance of logical inference, an account of which is given in the Transactions of our Society, could never have been devised by a man who was only a pure mathematician, or a pure logician. It is the “fruit of the grafting of an experimental genius on a philosophical genius.” This peculiarity gave to his writings a special interest and value, and secured for them a wide circle of readers. William Stanley Jevons was born at Liverpool on the 1st of September, 1835. His father, Thomas Jevons, was an iron merchant in that city, and his mother who wrote some poems, and edited the “Sacred Offering,” was the eldest daughter of William Roscoe, the author of the well-known biographies of Lorenzo de Medici and Leo X. His earlier education was received at the High School of the Mechanics’ Institution, and at a private school in his native city. Afterwards he was sent to London, where for twelve months he attended the classes of University College School. At the age of sixteen he entered University College and commenced the usual course of study in arts and sciences, matriculating in 1852 in London University with honours in botany and chemistry. In 1853 he received, through Mr. Graham, of the Mint, the appointment of Assayer to the Australian Royal Mint, at Sydney. He had just before won the gold medal in chemistry, at his College, and was working at the time, along with his cousin, Dr. Roscoe, in the Chemical Laboratory of Professor A. W. Williamson. On receiving the appointment he at once threw himself into the intricate processes of gold and silver assay, and by a diligent course of study in London, under Mr. Graham, and at Paris, under the authorities of the mint there, quickly qualified himself for the duties of an office which he filled with conspicuous ability and success for five years. His leisure at Sydney was devoted to scientific pursuits, more particularly to the study of the meteorology of the district, a subject which up to that time had been very little cultivated. The results of his observations, extending over the whole period of his residence in the colony, were embodied in a pamphlet entitled— “Some Data concerning the Climate of Australia and New Zealand.” During this period he published also a paper, “On the Cirrous Forms of Cloud, with remarks on other Forms of Cloud ” (“ Phil. Mag.,” 1857), and another “On the Geological Origin of Australia and Earthquakes in New South Wales” (“Sydney Mag.,” 1858).