Memoir of the Life of Dr. Thomas Young. 247 
he has added to almost every department of human knowledge that 
which will be remembered to after times. In the eloquent eulogy 
pronounced by Mr. Davies Gilbert from the Chair of the Royal 
Society it is observed, that ‘he came into the world with a confi- 
dence in his own talents, growing out of an expectation of excel- 
lence entertained in common by all his friends, which expectation 
was more than realized in the progress of his future life. ‘The mul- 
tiplied objects which he pursued were carried to such an extent, 
that each might have been supposed to have exclusivly occupied 
the full powers of his mind; knowledge in the abstract, the most 
enlarged generalizations, and the most minute and intricate details, 
were equally effected by him; but he had most pleasure in that 
which appeared to be most difficult of investigation.’ ‘'The example 
(says Mr. Gilbert) is only to be followed by those of equal perseve- 
rance,’ the concentration of research within the limits of some de- 
fined portion of science, is rather to be recommended than the en- 
deavor to embrace the whole 
Dr. Young’s opinion on this subject is stated by his biographer to 
have been, ‘that it was probably most advantageous to mankind 
that the researches of some inquirers should be concentrated within 
a given compass, but that others should pass more rapidly through a 
wider range—that the faculties of the mind were more exercised, 
and probably rendered stronger, by going beyond the rudiments 
and overcoming the great elementary difficulties of a variety of stu- 
dies, than by employing the same number of hours in any one pur- 
suit—that the doctrine of the division of labor, however applicable 
to material product, was not so to intellect, and that it went to re- 
duce the dignity of man in the scale of rational existence. He 
thought it impossible to foresee the capabilities of improvement in 
any science, so much of accident having led to the most important 
discoveries, that no man could say what might be the comparative 
advantage of any one study rather than that of another ; and though 
he would scarcely have recommended the plan of his own as the 
model of those of others, he still was satisfied in the course which 
he had pursued.’ 
It has been said that the powers of the imagination were the on- 
ly qualities of which Dr. Young’s mind was destitute ; the writer of 
this memoir thinks this want at least doubtful from the highly poet- 
ical cast of some of his early Greek translations, and is of opinion 
that it might with more justice have been said ‘ that he never culti- 
vated the talent of throwing a brilliancy on objects which he had as- 
* 
