220 Scientific Labors and Character of 
look upon the genius of childhood or youth, while undetermined in 
its choice of objects, as wandering unconfined, and as hable to be 
fixed and bound by any object upon which it may chance to light, 
that is powerful enough to arrest it; like those meteors which are 
said to be wandering in the regions of space, that have never yet 
found a resting place, but are liable to have their orbits determined 
by any grand luminary near which they may happen to pass, around 
which they forever afterwards revolve. The impressions of admi- 
ration produced by any incident that strongly arrests the attention of 
a child, are to be sedulously guarded against when the object is dan- 
gerous, and as sedulously cherished when the object is elevated and 
ood. While many a child of genius has had its ambition turned into 
a noble channel by strong examples of the rewards of virtue, many 
others, like Hannibal, have burned through life with unhallowed fire 
that was kindled in the bosom of the child. But whether we suppose 
that the genius of Davy was originally adapted to chemical pursuits, 
or that some incident connected with this science powerfully excited 
i iration, we cannot but regard his choice as most fortunate ; not 
because powers like his would not have reached the highest elevation 
in many other spheres of action, but because the talents required to 
make an accomplished chemist are peculiar and extraordinary, imply- 
ing as they do the union of a dexterous hand with a discriminating 
eye and a logical mind; the whole being kept in steady and vigorous 
action by untiring diligence. 
With all these qualities in their highest degree, Davy took the field. 
He gives us the date at which he commenced his chemical studies.* 
It was in March, 1798; and only two years afterwards, in 1800, ap- 
peared his “ Researches,” a book evincing great skill in chemical 
analysis, and publishing to the world, a great number of original eX- 
periments and discoveries. In the preface to this work he observes; 
‘early experience has taught me the folly of hasty generalization.’ 
He probably alludes here to an hypothesis which he had already 
framed and made public in the “ West Country Contributions,” ¢on- 
tained in an essay on heat, light, &e. Nothing is more natural than 
for a young enthusiast to proceed at once from the knowledge of a- 
- few facts to the formation of hypotheses, which subvert all the estab- 
lished principles of science. We are not surprised to find our author 
yielding to this propensity ; but we are truly surprised to find him 
a “ wae : * Researches, p. 453, 
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