THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 

 PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, 



Biographical Memoir ofDr Thomas Young. By M. Arago.* 



Death which, without interruption, is thinning our ranks, 

 seems, with a decided preference, to be directing his blows 

 against the very limited class of our Jbreign members. Within 

 a short space of time there has dropt from the list of the Aca- 

 demy the illustrious Herschel, whose bold ideas concerning the 

 arrangement of the universe appear every year to be acquiring a 

 higher probability ; Piazzi^ who, on the first day of this century, 

 presented a new planet to our solar system ; Watt, who was, if not 

 the inventor of the steam-engine — for the inventor was a French- 

 man — at least the discoverer of the many admirable combinations, 

 by the aid of which the insignificant apparatus of Papin is be- 

 come the most ingenious, the most useful, and the most powerful 

 instrument of industry; Volta, whose electrical pile confers upon 

 him immortality ; Davy^ alike celebrated for the decomposition 

 of the alkalies, and for the valuable safety-lamp of miners ; Wol- 

 lastoTiy whom the English designate the Pope, as he never failed 

 in his numerous experiments, or in his abstruse theoretical spe- 

 culations; and, finally, Jenner^ whose discovery I need not cha- 

 racterize among those who have experienced the feelings of a 

 parent. To pay to these illustrious characters the becoming tri- 

 bute of the regret, the admiration, and the gratitude of all those 

 who have devoted themselves to science, is one of the principal 

 duties which the Academy has imposed upon those on whom 

 it has conferred the dangerous honour of speaking in its name 

 • Read in the French Academy of Sciences. 



VOL. XX. NO. XL.— APRIL 1836. P 



