136 EULOGY ON THOMAS YOUNG. 



both the tloors with extended arms, aud, on the other, liis distinguished 

 rival galloping on the backs of two horses with all the confidence of an 

 equestrian by profession. 



In England, a ])hysician, if he does not wish to lose the confidence of 

 the public, ought to abstain from occupying himself with any scientific 

 or literary research which may be thought foreign to the art of curing 

 diseases. Young for a long time did liomage to this prejudice. Ilis 

 writings appeared under an anonymous veil. This veil, it is true, was 

 very tTansparent. Two consecutive "letters of a certain Latin motto 

 served successively in regular order as the signature to each memoir. 

 But Youn'^ communicated the three Latin words to all his friends both 

 in his own country and abroad, without enjoining secrecy on any one. 



Besides, who would be ignorant that the distinguished author of tlui 

 theory of interferences was the foreign secretary of the Eoyal Society 

 of London ; that he gave in the theater of the Eoyal Institution a course 

 of lectures on mathematical physics -, that, associated with Sir H. Davy, 

 he published a journal of the sciences, &c. ? And, moreover, we must say 

 that his anonymous disguise was not rigorously observed even in his 

 smaller memoirs ; and on important occasions, when, for instance, in 

 1807, the two volumes in quarto appeared, of 800 or 900 pages each, in 

 which all branches of natural philosophy were treated in a manner so 

 new and profound, the self-love of the author made him forget the in- 

 terests of the physician, and the name of Young in large letters replaced 

 the two small italics, whose series was then terminated, and which 

 would have figured in a rather ridiculous manner in the title-page of 

 this colossal work. 



Young had not then, as a physician, either in London or at Worthing, 

 where he passed tlie sea-bathing season, any extended practice. The 

 public found him, in fact, too scientific. We must also avow that his 

 public lectures on medicine, those for instance which he delivered at 

 St. George's Hospital, were generally but ill-attended. It has been said, 

 to explain this, that his lectures were too dry, too full of matter, aud 

 that they were beyond the apprehension of ordinary understandings. 

 But might not the want of success be rather ascribed to the freedom, 

 not very common, with which Young pointed out the inextricable diflS- 

 culties which encounter us at every step in the study of the numerous 

 disorders of our frail machine I 



Would any one expect at Paris, and especially in an age when every 

 one seeks to attain his end quickly and without labor, that a professor 

 of the faculty would retain many auditors if he were to commence with 

 these words, which I borrow literally from Dr. Young: "No study is 

 so complicated as that of medicine ; it exceeds the limits of human in- 

 telligence. Those physicians who precipitately go on without trying to 

 comprehend what they observe, are often just as much advanced as 

 those who give themselves uj) to generalizations hastily made on obser- 

 vations in regard to which all analogy is at fault." And if the profes- 

 sor, continuing in the same style, should add, " In the lottery of medi- 

 cine the chances of the possessor of ten tickets must evidently be greater 

 than those of the possessor of five," when they believed themselves en- 

 gaged in a lottery, would those of his auditors whom the first phrase 

 had not driven away be at all disposed to make any great efforts to 

 procure for themselves more tickets, or, to explain the meaning of our 

 professor, the greatest amount of knowledge possible °? 



In spite of his knowledge, x)erhaps even from the very cause that it 

 was so extensive, ^oung was totally wanting in confidence at the bed- 

 side of the j)atieut. Then the mischievous effects which might event- 



