A English mathematician and philosopher, William Kingdon Clifford was born in Exeter, the son of a justice of the peace. At the age of fifteen he went to Kings College, London. There he gained a minor scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, to which he went in 1863. He began to exhibit powers of originality in mathematics, publishing a number of mathematical papers during the year in which he first entered Cambridge.

At the university Clifford distinguished himself not only by his intellect but also by his singular character. As one of the most prominent undergraduates, he was soon invited to join the Apostles, an exclusive Cambridge club made up of the twelve most distinguished undergraduates of the time. Here he exhibited some of that breadth of learning and clarity of mind for which he was to be noted all his life. It appears...