334 Analysis of Books, fyc* 



variations, but he was gradually sinking into greater and greater 

 weakness till the morning of the 10th of May, when he expired 

 without a struggle, having hardly completed his fifty-sixth year. 

 He was attended throughout his illness hy his friends Dr. Chambers 

 and Dr. Nevinson. The disease proved to be an ossification of the 

 aorta, and every appearance indicated an advance of age, not 

 brought on probably by the natural course of time, nor even by con- 

 stitutional formation, but by unwearied and incessant labour of the 

 mind from the earliest days of infancy. His remains were deposited 

 in a vault in the church of Farnborough, Kent. 



It has been truly said of this extraordinary man, that as a physi- 

 cian, a linguist, an antiquary, a mathematician, scholar, and phi- 

 losopher, he has added to almost every department of human know- 

 ledge that which will be remembered to after times. In the eloquent 

 eulogy pronounced by Mr. Davies Gilbert from the Chair of the 

 Royal Society it is observed, that ' he came into the world with a con- 

 fidence in his own talents, growing out of an expectation of excel- 

 lence entertained in common by all his friends, which expectation 

 was more than realized in the progress of his future life. The mul- 

 tiplied objects which he pursued wefe carried to such an extent, that 

 each might have been supposed to have exclusively occupied the full 

 powers of his mind ; knowledge in the abstract, the most enlarged 

 generalizations, and the most minute and intricate details, were 

 equally effected by him ; but he had most pleasure in that which 

 appeared to be most difficult of investigation.' ' The example (says 

 Mr. Gilbert) is only to be followed by those of equal perseverance,' 

 the concentration of research within the limits of some defined portion 

 of science, is rather to be recommended than the endeavour to 

 embrace the whole. 



Dr. Young's opinion on this subject is stated by his biographer to 

 have been, * that it was probably most advantageous to mankind that 

 the researches of some inquirers should be concentrated within a 

 given compass, but that others should pass more rapidly through a 

 wider range that the faculties of the mind were more exercised, and 

 probably rendered stronger, by going beyond the rudiments and 

 overcoming the great elementary difficulties of a variety of studies, 

 than by employing the same number of hours in any one pursuit 

 that the doctrine of the division of labour, however applicable to 

 material product, was not so to intellect, and that it went to reduce 

 the dignity of man in the scale of rational existence. He thought 

 it impossible to foresee the capabilities of improvement in any sci- 

 ence, so much of accident having led to the most important dis- 

 coveries, that no man could say what might be the comparative 

 advantage of any one study rather than of another ; and though he 

 would scarcely have recommended the plan of his own as the model 

 of those of others, he still was satisfied in the course which he had 

 pursued.' 



It has been said that the powers of the imagination were 



