68 MEMOIR OF DR. DALTON, AND 



arose from a peculiarity of mind which seems to have been 

 too much developed in him, as in those also where obser- 

 vation and experience are so tenaciously remembered as 

 to become the only groundwork of opinion, and where 

 the arguments of others are as mere fiction, having no 

 influence upon the reasoning powers. Acting in this spirit, 

 he discouraged reading, and prevented the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society from obtaining a sufficient supply of 

 books. He said, " I could carry all the books I have ever 

 read on my back."* In this, he was evidently forgetting how 

 diverse were the faculties of mankind, and acting also in 

 ignorance of the fact, that he was himself suffering from a 

 want of reading, although it is probably true that he was 

 a gainer in another direction from the same cause. But in 

 summing up features of characters, we find great antagonism 

 in our results, so that we are in error when we make up a 

 very uniform design from what is too often a hastily prepared 

 patchwork, and known to be so by the owners themselves, 

 but which they are prevented from completing by circum- 

 stances, if not by time, which limits the progress of all. He, 

 in fact, is often the great man who allows himself to act 

 onesidedly, not for his own pleasure or profit, but because 

 the struggle which he has to maintain, needs all energies 

 to be concentrated on one point of attack. 



In this way we may view Dalton. We must see him also 

 as a man having limited assistance from the knowledge of 

 others, ignorant of many of the elegant and easy methods of 

 procuring knowledge and illustrating facts which have be- 

 come the common inheritance of universities, and accustomed 

 to the society of few only who had similar studies ; and when 

 meeting with his contemporaries from capital cities, forgetting 

 that they were not like him, completely immersed in the 

 study of nature, but were also expected to cultivate the soiree 

 and the dinner table. Still sociality was not entirely checked 



• Mr. Woolley is my authority. 



