EDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS. 7 



from countless ages of brutality, can somehow be made over all 

 in a moment, just as one would go to work with masons and car- 

 penters and revamp a house. There are many good people who 

 still labor under such a delusion. 



Though Mr. Youmans was brought into frequent contact with 

 reformers of this sort, it does not seem to me that his mind was 

 ever deeply impressed with such ways of thinking. Science is 

 teaching us that the method of evolution is that mill of God, of 

 which we have heard, which, while it grinds with infinite efficacy, 

 yet grinds with wearisome slowness. It was Mr. Darwin's dis- 

 covery of natural selection which first brought this truth home 

 to us ; but Sir Charles Lyell had in 1830 shown how enormous 

 effects are wrought by the cumulative action of slight and unob- 

 trusive causes, and this had much to do with turning men's minds 

 toward some conception of evolution. It was about 1847 that Mr. 

 Youmans was deeply interested in the work of geologists, as well 

 as in the nebular theory, to which recent discoveries were adding 

 fresh confirmation. Some time before this he had read that fa- 

 mous book, Vestiges of Creation, and, although Prof. Agassiz truly 

 declared that it was an unscientific book crammed with antiquated 

 and exploded fancies, I suspect that Mr. Youmans felt that amid 

 all the chaff there was a very sound and sturdy kernel of truth. 



Among the books which Mr. Youmans projected at this time, 

 the first was a compendious history of progress in discovery and 

 invention ; but, after he had made extensive preparations, a book 

 was published so similar in scope and treatment that he abandoned 

 the undertaking. Another work was a treatise on arithmetic, on 

 a new and philosophical plan ; but, when this was approaching 

 completion, he again found himself anticipated, this time by the 

 book of Horace Mann. This was discouraging enough, but a 

 third venture resulted in brilliant success. We have observed 

 the eagerness with which, as a school-boy, Mr. Youmans entered 

 upon the study of chemistry. His interest in this science grew 

 with years, and he devoted himself to it so far as was practicable. 

 For a blind man to carry on the study of a science which is pre- 

 eminently one of observation and experiment might seem hope- 

 less. It was at any rate absolutely necessary to see with the eyes 

 of others if not with his own. Here the assistance rendered 

 by his sister was invaluable. During most of this period she 

 served as amanuensis and reader for him. But, more than this, 

 she kept up for some time a course of laboratory work, the results 

 of which were minutely described to her brother and discussed 

 with him in the evenings. The lectures of Dr. John William 

 Draper on chemistry were also thoroughly discussed and pon- 

 dered. 



The conditions under which Mr. Youmans worked made it 



