2 MEMOIR OF DR. DALTON, AND 



of facts confessedly incomplete in the eyes of the most 

 enlightened, was made the great centre round which all 

 chemical knowledge placidly rolled. We may be allowed 

 to boast, that, when this society had existed only a few 

 years, one of its members was found to devise a theory 

 which not only was sufficient to throw light on the past, 

 but at once to put into the infinite observations of his pre- 

 decessors that reason and order of which before they seemed 

 totally deprived. The hermetic mystic and alchemist had 

 toiled over the difficulties, had tried to remove them by 

 physics and by metaphysics, had explained them by supposing 

 an independent will in the elements or by the immediate 

 Divine interposition ; by their wildest imaginings and their 

 clearest reasonings little definite had been attained. The 

 laws which Dalton shewed us to be dominant in matter, 

 considered chemically, were at once clear enough to satisfy 

 the most exact reasoner, great enough to satisfy the most 

 poetical thinker, and simple enough to satisfy those who 

 believe that, at least the great primary laws of nature are 

 simple, whether because the highest wisdom can of course 

 attain its ends with the greatest ease, or because the simplest 

 germ is more easily fitted to branch out into an' endless de- 

 velopment of character and power. 



It is scarcely possible to write the life of Dalton without 

 referring to this Society, and as it is by request of this body 

 that I have undertaken to write, I must explain to them 

 what I have specially attempted to do. After Dr. Henry 

 had written the life of Dalton, it might fairly be asked why 

 I should undertake one. I was requested to write this 

 memoir at a time when it was uncertain when Dr. Henry's 

 would appear. I was unwilling to compete with Dr. Henry, 

 and saw no propriety in doing so, although he offered me his 

 materials on certain fair conditions. I had no intention to 

 write a complete life, nor, I believe, had the society the desire 

 to have a memoir so large as that which I present, and I 



