HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC THBORY. 247 



CHAPTER XII, 



LATER LIFE OF DALTON. 



Although the atomic theory must ever be considered as 

 Dalton's great discovery, we find that he obtained it at the end 

 of a series of investigations of themselves sufficient to have 

 made him a conspicuous character. These earlier labours 

 had great influence in advancing physical knowledge, and 

 first brought him into repute. We find him so early as 

 1804 lecturing in the Royal Institution, when his theory 

 was scarcely known but to himself, and when it was not 

 expected to form part of a lecture. Fame was now beginning 

 to hover round him, and he was not insensible of the change. 

 But to persons of his habits, fame is less welcome in person than 

 by letter, as we may say. They are less fitted for receiving the 

 compliments of the world addressed to them in their presence, 

 than for receiving those more impressive results, — great respect 

 and deference; and, above all, the pleasure of seeing the influence 

 they exercise upon society. Dalton was evidently conscious 

 of the position to which he was entitled in the scientific 

 world, although equally conscious that he was out of place 

 in those brilliant assemblies in which scientific men in capitals 

 occasionally mingle. He seems to write as if it were rather 

 curious, although true, that he, too, was one of them, that 

 the hope and struggle of his life to attain a position in 

 science had been realized, but to feel at the same time that 

 his life was not there, but as before, in his laboratory. 



It not unfrequently happened, after this period, that he 

 was engaged in controversy ; and we find him there acting 

 with great ease and deliberation, always without fear. Like 

 most scientific men, he was destined to modify or to contradict 



