ATOMIC THEORY. 417 



he describes himself as having ' got into a track that has not 

 been much trod in before.' This was the track, and these 

 the discoveries to which it led him. 



Pursuing farther onwards the history of their progress, 

 it must be stated that Dalton's views, even when already 

 matured by proof, did not find instant adoption in the 

 scientific world. We have already alluded to his uncouth and 

 ineffective manner of propounding them, whether by lec- 

 tures or writing. The very phraseology of atoms and atomic 

 weights frightened timid reasoners away from the subject ; 

 and the boldness of the diagrams by which he depictured his 

 groups of spherical atoms strengthened the belief that it was 

 a rash recurrence to the tenets of an exploded philosophy.* 

 But the husk, however thick it be, is always pierced through 

 when truth lies within the kernel. A few eminent chemists, 

 among whom Thomson, Wollaston, Gray-Lussac, and Berzelius 

 may especially be named, speedily saw the value of the dis- 

 covery, and applied their own labours to verify and extend 

 it. Dr. Thomson's habitual zeal was quickened by personal 

 communication and friendship with Dalton. Of Dr. Wollas- 

 ton it was said that he would soon have made the discovery 

 himself if Dalton had not done so ; and the mathematical 

 acuteness of his understanding, as well as the direction and 

 method of his chemical researches, might justify this belief, 

 were it not that a certain scepticism of mind perpetually 

 checked and impeded the efforts of which his intellect was 

 capable. His paper on super-acid and sub-acid salts furnished 

 much collateral testimony to the truth of the doctrine ; while 



* It was Dalton's opinion that no conception of this kind could be clearly 

 grasped by the understanding, without some embodiment to the sight. The 

 best sanction to the justice of his views is the adoption of this manner of illus- 

 tration by one of the most eminent chemists of our day, Dr. Hofmann ; who, 

 in his admirable lectures on Organic Chemistry at the Royal Institution, denoted 

 the most complex organic compounds by coloured atomic symbols ; so disposed 

 on sliding frames that every change, whether by addition or subtraction of 

 atoms, could be shown with the utmost facility. 



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