Whewell was innate at Lancaster, England. His father, the carpenter, wished him to watch his trade, however his profits inside mathematics at Lancaster and Heversham grammar schools won him an exhibition at Trinity College, Cambridge (1812). He was 2nd wrangler in 1816, President of the Cambridge Union Society inside 1817, became fellow & tutor of his college, and, in 1841, succeeded Dr Wordsworth when master. He was prof of mineralogy from 1828 to 1832, and of moral philosophy (so known as "moral theology and casuistical divinity") from either 1838 to 1855.

Whewell was large non lone inside research project & philosophy, however as well within university & college administration. His number one operate, An Simple Treatise in Mechanics (1819), co-operated by having victims of George Peacock and John Herschel in reforming a Cambridge method of mathematical teaching; he influenced the recognition of the lesson & natural sciences as an integral section of the Cambridge programme (1850). inside a main, nevertheless, especially in late years, he opposed reform: he defended the tutorial system, and around the disputation by owning Connop Thirlwall (1834), opposed the admission of Dissenters; he upheld a clerical fellowship body, the privileged class of "fellow-commoners," & a authority of heads of colleges around university affairs. He opposed a appointment of the University Commission (1850), & wrote 2 pamphlets (Remarks) against a reform of the university (1855). He advocated when truth reform, against a scheme of entrusting elections to a members of a senate, the utilise of college funds & the subvention of scientific & professorial operate.

Around 1826 & 1828, Whewell was engaged by owning George Biddell Airy in conducting experiments in Dolcoath mine, Cornwall, in order to determine a density of the globe. Their labours were abortive, & Whewell did little extra in the way of experimental science. He wrote an Essay in Mineralogical Classification, published around 1828, & contributed various memoirs on the tides to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society between 1833 & 1850. However these are in his History & Philosophy of the Sciences that his claim to fame rests. A History of a Inductive Sciences, from either the Earliest to the Present Period appeared originally within 1837.

Whewell's wide, in case superficial, acquaintance by having various branches of science enabled him to write the comprehensive account of their development, which is however worthful. He regarded a History as an introduction to the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840). A latter treatise analyses a method exemplified in a formation of ideas, in the fresh inductions of science, & in the applications & systematisation one inductions 100% exhibited bv the History in the run of development. In the Philosophy, Whewell tries to watch Francis Bacon's plan for discovery of an legal art of discovery. He examines ideas ("explication of conceptions") & per " colligation of facts endeavours to unite these ideas to the facts and so construct science. But no art of discovery, such as Bacon anticipated, follows, for "invention, sagacity, genius" are needed at each step. He analyses induction into three steps: