BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF ARTHUR CAYLEY. XXI 
.875, he was made an 
his life. His friends 
ison in 1874; it now 
on its frame, but the 
d not readily be for- 
not entirely repressed 
l of the man 
Academy, and of the Royal Astronomical Society. He had been President of the Cam 
bridge Philosophical Society, and he sat on its Council for many years; also President 
of the London Mathematical Society and of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was 
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 3rd June, 1852, and he served as a member 
of its Council for six periods of office. In 1859 he received from the Royal Society a 
Royal medal, and in 1882 the Copley Medal, the highest scientific distinction it is in its 
power to bestow. When the De Morgan Medal was instituted in connexion with the 
London Mathematical Society, the first award was fitly made to Cayley. And from 
Leyden he received the Huyghens Medal. 
y a donor who wished 
of the College on 3rd 
fe in only two other 
Mention should be made of one other honour which he received: it is of a kind 
seldom conferred. The high opinion of his work which was held in America was indi 
cated by an invitation in 1881 to deliver a course of lectures in the Johns Hopkins 
University, Baltimore, where his friend and fellow investigator, Sylvester, was then 
professor. He accepted the invitation, and left England in December of that year. 
i 27th May, 1886, de- 
ubject to the improved 
of lecturing required, 
;he Lucasian Professor- 
new statutes; and it 
have been included in 
inge made. There was 
ime recognition to the 
uns, and Cayley; one 
ce Edward (as he was 
the degree of LL.D. 
a number of honorary 
ilar occasion, were the 
mtury. On the 9th of 
iegrees conferred upon 
>ut for honour received 
ns were those accorded 
During the next five months he lectured on Abelian and Theta Functions; the substance 
of these lectures was incorporated in a memoir subsequently published in the American 
Journal of Mathematics*. He returned to England in June, 1882, bringing back 
pleasant remembrances of kindnesses and friendships. 
His life, spent in mathematical research and in the quiet round of activity in the 
University, offered little of either interest or incident to make his name known by the 
outside world to the same extent or in the same way as the names of many scientific 
men, engaged in other lines of enquiry, are known. Once, however, in his life circum 
stances brought him prominently into notice. In 1883 he was President of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, the meeting being held at Southport; and, 
in that capacity at the opening of the meeting, he had to deliver a formal address, 
an abstract of which appeared as usual in the leading newspapers of the country. 
In the early days of the Association, the President’s address frequently reviewed 
the whole field of science; but as knowledge has developed, a tendency has set in, 
according to which each later President has confined himself more particularly to those 
matters within whose range he is an authority. And, subject to this restriction, it is 
hoped that the address may be legitimately popular. There have been critics of presi 
dential addresses prepared to assert that science was sacrificed to popularity; there 
3 and abroad, backward 
3d were numerous and 
him by several univer- 
Edinburgh, Gottingen, 
him an Officer of the 
ending member of most 
ie French Institute, the 
, Leyden, Upsala, and 
irgh, of the Royal Irish 
have been immense audiences convinced that popularity was sacrificed to science. Taken 
together, the presidential addresses, some severe and others popular, form an interesting 
series of reviews of the successive stages in scientific achievements. 
Cayley’s address belonged to the severely scientific class. From the nature of his 
subject—the progress of mathematics, more particularly of pure mathematics—it was 
bound to have this character. Few of the members of a regular Association audience 
have more than a slight acquaintance with pure mathematics; and, consequently, it is 
impossible to deliver to such a gathering an address which, in a reasonable time, can 
give them any real idea of the condition or the progress of the science. Cayley felt 
of the C. M. P. 
* Vol. v. (1883), pp. 137—179 ; vol. vn. (1885), pp. 101—167.