HISTORY OF THK ATOMIC THEORY. 185 



difficulty in telling exactly his place in science ; but there is a 

 difficulty in defining it exactly when we have to deal with 

 Dalton, who grasped the whole so much more firmly, enlarged 

 it, placed it, and established it in a series of laws. Any one 

 to be put before Higgins must have made great advances : 

 he cannot be put down by any obscure sentences dragged from 

 any author. Any one to eclipse him must be fuller, more 

 decisive, and more systematic. 



From the want of these qualities Higgins appears more in 

 the character of a great thinker than of a great discoverer. 



2B 



