390 LIFE OF D ALTON : 



speculations of ancient philosophy had anticipated, as we shall 

 presently see, some of the results, now better fixed by actual 

 experiment and the singular refinements of modern ana- 

 lysis. Dalton had no knowledge of these elder hypotheses, nor 

 even a full anticipation of all that his doctrine was to bring 

 forth in the future. But it was he who in effect sowed the 

 seeds for this great harvest ; and though others had reached 

 the very brink of the discovery, it was he who first fully 

 indicated the principle and method of research, and the true 

 import and value of the facts derived from it. 



The name of Dalton must therefore enter into every 

 history of the atomic theory; and we may be excused for 

 dwelling upon some particulars of the life of this remark- 

 able man, as afforded us in the volume of Dr. Henry, 

 aided by our own personal recollections of him during a long 

 period of years. Apart indeed from his scientific career, it 

 would be difficult to conceive an existence more calm and 

 uneventful than that of Dalton. What Cuvier said of 

 Cavendish is equally true applied to him ( II n'y a dans son 

 histoire d'autres incidens que des decouvertes.' Born in a 

 humble position from which he only slowly emerged ; living 

 successively in two provincial towns, where few at that time 

 could understand or appreciate his labours ; working always 

 alone, with no other excitement than the love of physical 

 truth ; wanting little, and undisturbed by the passions or 

 even by the more common emotions of social existence his 

 course was one of patient study, unbroken by any of the sterner 

 incidents of life. He was a Quaker by birth, and maintained 

 to the end the dress and many of the usages of the sect. But 

 his character and habits depended much less on this than 

 on his individual temperament, and those intellectual pecu- 

 liarities of which we shall afterwards speak. 



John Dalton was born at Eaglesfield, a village near 

 Cockermouth, in 1766. The Daltons were of the class of 



