30 AN ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY MATHEMATICAL, &c. 



world. That mathematician described a principle of pro- 

 portion lurking among the incondite mass of recorded 

 chemical analyses * * * * which led him 



right to the revival of the Newtonian application of the idea 

 of Democritus. * * * ♦ Wollaston and 



Thomson were his earliest converts of established reputation. 

 These ingenuous men, followed by Davy, Gay-Lussac, and 

 Berzelius, and by the whole phalanx of the chemists of the 

 present century, quickly carried the fact of chemical pro- 

 portionals towards its consummation through a million of new 

 and interesting particulars, and not a few important general 

 deductions : — and now the theory stands embodied in the 

 entire fabric of this most practical science." Previously to 

 this discovery the practical philosopher had to grope his way 

 through the elements of nature, without the possibility of 

 extricating himself from the masses of confusion by which he 

 was surrounded ; — but no sooner did the light of Dalton's 

 genius dawn upon the chemical horizon than chaos dis- 

 appeared and order resumed her sway. Henceforth the path 

 of the scientific explorer is directed by the pure rays of this 

 pole star of nature — the atomic theory has deservedly im- 

 mortalized the name of its expounder — and Dalton's applica- 

 tion of mathematics to chemical philosophy will ever rank as 

 one of the most brilliant discoveries of modern times. 



