1 1 2 EULOGY ON THOMAS YOUNG. 



witli interest; the Edinburgh Eeview attacked the man of erudition, 

 the writer, the geometer, the experimenter, with a vehemence, with a 

 severity ot expression, almost without example in scientific discussion. 

 The public usually keep on their guard when such violent language is 

 addressed to them ; but in this instance they adopted, at the first ouset, 

 the opinions of the journalist, in w^hich we cannot fairlj' accuse them of in- 

 considerateness. The journalist, in fact, was not one of those unfledged 

 critics whose mission is not justified by any pievious study of the sub- 

 ject. Several good papers, received by the Royal Society, had attested 

 his mathematical knowledge, and had assigned him a distinguished 

 place among the physicists to whom optical science was indebted; the 

 profession of the bar in London had acknowledged him one of its shin- 

 ing luminaries; the whig section of the House of Commons saw in him 

 an efficient orator, who, in parliamentary struggles, was often the happy 

 antagonist of Canning. This was the future president of the House of 

 Peers — the present lord chancellor^* How could opposition be offered 

 to unjust criticisms proceeding from so high a quarter? I am not igno- 

 rant what firmness some minds enjoy in the consciousness of their being 

 in the right, in the certainty that sooner or later truth will triumph ; 

 but I know, also, that we shall act wisely in not reckoning too much on 

 such exceptions. Listen, for exami^le, to Galileo himself, repeating in 

 a whisper, after his abjuration, "^ pur si muove!^^ and do not seek in 

 these immortal words an augury for the future, for they are but the ex- 

 pression of the cruel vexation which the illustrious old man experienced. 

 Young, also, in writing a few pages which he published as an answer to 

 the Edinburgh Eeview, showed, himself deeply discouraged. The 

 vivacity, the vehemence of his expressions, ill concealed the sentiment 

 which oppressed him. In a word, let ns hasten to say that justice, com- 

 plete justice, was at length rendered to the great physicist. After sev- 

 eral years the whole world recognized in him one of the brightest lumi- 



to conceive particles darted through space with such inconceivable velocity as must 

 belong to those of light, and yet stopping to wave about, in and out, as Newton ex- 

 presses it, " like an eel," close to the edge of a body, by virtue of some mysterious in- 

 fluence which it exercises upon them. 



Again : the theory of those alternating states, conditions, or " fits," as he termed 

 them, at such minute intervals along the length of ray, alternately putting it in a state 

 to be reflected, and again to be transmitted by a transparent medium, seem very remote 

 from the idea of a single rectilinear progress of molecules through space following one 

 another at immense intervals of distance, though in inconceivably rapid succession in 

 time. It would be easy to extend such remarks ; but it will probably be seen, with 

 sufficient evidence for our present purpose, that neither in profession nor in fact can 

 Newton's name be appealed to as at all an exclusive supporter of the material hypoth- 

 esis of light, even if in other passages he had not distinctly referred to that of undu- 

 lations ; and of these references a large number are quoted from difierent portions of 

 his writings by Dr. Young in the paper above cited. In some of these, while he ad- 

 mits the readiness with which the idea of waves represents the phenomena, he yet 

 dwells on certain apparent objections which seemed to invalidate that idea. 



Upon the whole, it appears that the name of Newton can in no way be legitimately 

 claimed as a partisan of either theory. Indeed, it is surprising that any claim of the 

 kind could have been set up as regards the emission theory, after his own distinct 

 avowal : 



'"Tis true, that from theory I argue the corporeity of light ; but I do it without any 

 absolute jjositiveness, as the word ' perhaps ' intimates ; and make it at most but a very 

 plausible consequence of the doctrine, and not a fundamental supposition, nor so much 

 as any part of it."— (Phil. Trans., vol. x, 1675, p. 5086.) 



While in respect to either hypothesis, it is sufficiently evident to those acquainted 

 with his writings that he never s^sfema/Zcrt?/)/ upheld either the one or the other; but 

 from time to time, as each particular investigation seemed to require, he adojited the 

 one or the other principle, just as it seemed to give the more ready exiflanation of the 

 point before him. — Translator. 



* Lord Brougham, who held that office when this biography was written. 



