POWELL, The Rev. BADEN, an eminent English savant, son of a London merchant, was born at Stamford hill, near London, Aug. 22, 1796, and studied at Oriel college, Oxford, where lie graduated M.A., with first-class mathematical honors, in 1817. Powell took holy orders in 1820, and was appointed vicar at Plumstead, in Kent, in 1821. In 1824 he was elected a fellow of the royal society; and three years later, was appointed Savilian professor of geometry, a chair which he held till his death, which took place in London, June 11, 1860. As a professor, hid great aim was to bring about a linger recog nition of the importance of physical and mathematical science in the curriculum of learned study at _Oxford, and his efforts have not been altogether in vain. To the sophical Transactions, the Reports of the British association and other vehicles of scientific instruction, he contributed numerous valuable papers; but is perhaps best known by his strenuous exertions to obtain for modern science the right of modifying the views of nature and the origin of the world, expounded or thought to be expounded in the Jewish Scriptures. In this perilous department of controversy Powell displayed great learning,
logical pOwer, moderation of tone, and philosophic urbanity; but his conclusions were too unmistakably rationalistic to be palatable to the orthodox. Among his works may be mentioned A Short Elementary Treatise on Experimental and Matheniatical Optics, Designed for the Use of Students (Oxford, 1833); Revelation and Science (Oxford, 1833); A Historical View of the Progress of the Physical and ,Vathematical Sciences (Loud. 1834); The Connection of Natural and Divine Truth (Loud. 1838); Tradition Unveiled: A Candid Inquiry into the Tendency of the Doctrines advocated in the Oxford Tracts; A General and Elementary View of the Undulatory Theory as applied to the Dispersion of Light, etc. (Loud. 1841); Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, etc. (Loud. 1855); Christianity without Judaism (1857); The Order of Natnre considered with Reference to the Claims of Recelation (1859); and On the Study and Evidences of Christianity iu Essays and Reviews (1S60).