140 EULOGY OX THOMAS YOUNG. 



of interferences. Young is now placed before yoiireyes as one of the 

 most illustrious men of science, in whom England may justly take pride. 

 Your thoughts, anticipating my words, may perhaps perceive already, 

 in the recital of the Just honors shown to the author of so beautiful a 

 discovery, the peroration of this historical notice. These anticipations, 

 1 regret to say, will not be realized. The death of Young has in his own 

 country created very little sensation. The doors of Westminster* Ab- 

 bey, so easily accessible to titled mediocrity, remained shut upon a man 

 of genius, wlio was not even a baronet. It was in the villag^e of Faru- 

 bbrough, in the modest tomb of the family of his wife, that the remains of 

 Thomas Young were deposited. The indiiierence of the English nation 

 for those scientific labors which ought to add so much to its glory is a rare 

 anomaly, of which it would be curious to trace the causes. I should be 

 Avautiug in frankness, I should be the panegyrist, not the historian, if I 

 did not avow that, in general. Young did not sufficiently accommodate 

 himself to the capacity of his readers; that the greater part of the writ- 

 ings for which the sciences are indebted to him are jxistly chargeable 

 with a certain obscurity. But the neglect to which they were long con- 

 signed did not depend solely on this cause. 



The exact sciences have an advantage over the works of art or imagi- 

 nation which has often been pointed out. The truths of which they 

 consist remain constant through ages without suifering in any respect 

 from the caprices of fashion or the decline of taste; but thus, when 

 once these researches rise into more elevated regions of thought, on how 

 many competent judges of their merits can we reckon? When Eichelieu 

 let loose against the great Corneille a crowd of that class of men whom 

 envy of the merit of others renders furious, the Parisians vehemently 

 hissed the partisans of the despot cardinal, and applauded the poet. 

 This reparation is denied to the geometer, the astronomer, or the physi- 

 cist who cultivates the highest parts of science. Those who even com- 

 petently appreciate them throughout the whole extent of Europe never 

 rise above the number of eight or ten. Imagine these unjust, indifterent, 

 or even jealous, (for I suppose that may sometimes be the case,) and the 

 public, reduced to believe on hearsay, would be ignorant that D'Alem- 

 bert had connected the great phenomenon of precession of equinoxes 

 with the principle of universal gravitation; that Lagrange had arrived 

 at the discovery of the physical cause of the libration of the moon; 

 that since the researches of Laplace, the acceleration of the motion ot 

 that luminary is found to be connected with a particular change in the 

 form of the earth's orbit, &c. The journals of science, when they are 

 edited by men of recognized merit, thus acquire, on certain subjects, 

 an influence which sometimes becomes fatal. It is thus, I conceive, that 

 we may describe the influence which the Edinburgh Keview has some- 

 times exercised. Among the contributors to that celebrated journal at 

 its commencement, a young writer was eminently distinguished, in whom 

 the discoveries of Newton had inspired an ardent admiration. This 

 sentiment, so natural, so legitimate, unfortunately led him to miscon- 

 ceive the plausible, ingenious, and fertile character of the doctrine of 

 interferences. The author of this theory had not, perhaps, always taken 

 care to clothe his decisions, his statements, his critiques, with those 

 more polished forms of expression the claims of which ought never to 



* The frequenters of Poet's Corner need not be reminded that literature and science 

 are not exchided trom their share of funereal honors in Westminster Abbey. M. Arago 

 here, as in some other passages, may naturally be a little incorrect in referring to 

 national usages. Tiie delay which occurred in regard to Young's monument is, how- 

 ever, not fully explained by Dean Peacock. (See Life of Young, p. 4b5.) — Traxsl.atok. 



