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Updated: June 22, 2025
Whewell's book, 'Plurality of Worlds, reasons to this end: The planets were created for this world; this world for man; man for England; England for Cambridge; and Cambridge for Dr. Whewell! "Ambleside, September 13.
Whewell's views of a natural classification by resemblance to "types," instead of in accordance with well-selected characters; and indeed the whole of these chapters are well deserving the careful study of naturalists, notwithstanding that the wonderfully rapid progress in recent years of new ideas, lying at the very root of all the natural sciences, may be thought by some to give the whole argument, in spite of its logical excellence, a somewhat antiquated flavor.
Whewell's writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of my subject, the theory of Induction. I therefore did not expect that the book would have many readers, or approvers; and looked for little practical effect from it, save that of keeping the tradition unbroken of what I thought a better philosophy.
Browning's poetry was so coarse that he could not tolerate it, and he was amused to hear that any people had got above Mrs. Hemans; and he asked me if we had outgrown Homer! To which I replied that they were not similar cases. "Altogether, there was a tone of satire in Dr. Whewell's remarks which I did not think amiable.
As soon as the lectures were delivered, the lecturer threw the manuscripts into the fire; and it is satisfactory to find that he did not take his performance very seriously, or set a very high value on his philosophical attainments. In 1843 he wrote, in reply to Dr. Whewell's inquiry: "My lectures are gone to the dogs, and are utterly forgotten.
Lyell's contemporaries were not without some inkling of his esoteric doctrine. Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences, whatever its philosophical value, is always worth reading and always interesting, if under no other aspect than that of an evidence of the speculative limits within which a highly-placed divine might, at that time, safely range at will.
Very useful service was rendered to astronomy by Whewell's treatise upon, or rather against, the plurality of worlds, calling attention as it did to the utter feebleness of the arguments on which men had been content to accept the belief that other planets and other systems are inhabited.
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