ATOMIC THEORY. 397 



nature he generally spoke of them as ' these articles ; ' 

 describing their qualities with far less earnestness than a 

 London linendraper would show in commending the very 

 different articles which lie on his shelves. 



Dalton's doctrines therefore needed other advocacy than 

 his own to bring them fairly before the world. Nor was 

 this aid wanting. We shall have to mention soon the names 

 of those eminent Chemists who speedily recognised the value 

 of the discovery, and sought by their labours to verify and 

 extend it. His own life proceeded meanwhile in the same 

 course of tranquil labour. He was now, however, less 

 occupied with new objects than with the completion of his 

 previous researches, and the removal of objections which had 

 been raised to certain parts of them. With all his love of 

 truth, in science as in other things, Dalton was strongly 

 tenacious of conclusions once formed ; and there were many 

 opinions to which he clung, long after more exact experi- 

 ments than his own had shown them to be doubtful or inad- 

 missible. We may name as instances, his obstinate adherence 

 to the atomic weights he first assigned, though proved to be 

 incorrect ; his reluctance to adopt the doctrine of volumes, 

 received by all other chemists; and his long struggle 

 against the recognition of chlorine as a chemical element. 



Though always recluse in his habits, his reputation, now 

 established both at home and abroad, inevitably enlarged 

 his intercourse with the world. Manchester too (at least those 

 in it who found leisure for anything beyond the labours and 

 profits of the loom) began to feel pride in the fame of their 

 fellow-townsman. But his private life was little changed in 

 its simplicity his character not at all. While streets, 

 factories, and steam-engines were growing up multitudinously 

 around, he continued to reside in the same quiet house and 

 family in which he finally closed his career. He seldom 

 went into what is called society. His associates were chiefly 



