244 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



17. 



Thomas 

 Young. 



in their line of thought and discovery, have to the present 

 day remained popularly unknown to their countrymen, 

 who have not only neglected but reviled them, allowing 

 their great discoveries to be taken up as their own by 

 foreigners. Such was Dr Thomas Young, whom many 

 educated persons at the present day cannot distinguish 

 from the author of ' Night Thoughts.' 1 The great founder 



1 Thomas Young (1773-1829), a 

 native of Somersetshire, attained 

 equal eminence by his discoveries 

 in connection with the undulatory 

 theory of light, in which he was 

 the first to assert the principle of 

 interference and that of transverse 

 vibrations, and by his discovery 

 of the key to the system of hiero- 

 glyphics. Of his discoveries and 

 suggestions some were published in 

 anonymous review articles (so es- 

 pecially his hieroglyphical papers) ; 

 some in his Lectures on Natural 

 Philosophy, delivered early in the 

 century at the Royal Institution, 

 and published 1807 ; some in the 

 ' Transactions of the Royal Society ' 

 (from 1800 onwards) ; and some in 

 various collective works, especially 

 the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica.' The 

 remarkable fact that Young, of 

 whom Helmholtz says ('Vortriige 

 und Reden,' vol. i. p. 279) that he 

 came a generation too soon, re- 

 mained scientifically unrecognised 

 and popularly almost unknown to 

 his countrymen, has been explained 

 by his unfortunate^ manner of ex- 

 pression and the peculiar channels 

 through which his labours were an- 

 nounced to the world. His fre- 

 quently unintelligible style, his ob- 

 scure and inelegant mathematics, 

 the habitual incognito which he pre- 

 served, his modesty in replying to 

 attacks, and his general want of 

 method in enunciating his ideas, con- 

 trast very markedly with the writ- 

 ings of some of his rivals, especially 



in France, where the qualities of 

 style, method, and elegance were 

 highly developed, and where recog- 

 nised organs existed for the pub- 

 lication of works of genius. The 

 historian of thought, however, must 

 not omit to state that several great 

 names contributed, by the author- 

 ity they commanded, to oppose 

 Young's claims to originality and 

 renown. Lord Brougham, shielded 

 by the powerful anonymity of 

 the ' Edinburgh Review,' and osten- 

 tatiously parading the authority of 

 Newton, submitted the views of 

 Young to a ruthless and unfair 

 criticism, the popular influence of 

 which Young probably never over- 

 came. The great authority on op- 

 tics, Brewster, who has enriched 

 that science by such a number of 

 experiments and observations of 

 the first importance, never really 

 adopted the theories of Young and 

 Fresnel. In the other great branch 

 of research with which Young's 

 name is now indissolubly connect- 

 ed, in the science of hieroglyphics, 

 the authority of Bunsen decided 

 against Young and for the French- 

 man Champollion. But this de- 

 cision, which did so much to ob- 

 scure the merits of Young, was 

 founded on an insufficient know- 

 ledge of the dates of Young's pub- 

 lications. Since these were collect- 

 ed by Leitch in the third volume 

 of the ' Miscellaneous Works ' of Dr 

 Young (London, 1855), the chrono- 

 logy of his discoveries, which begin 



