50 



PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



(1766-1844), led on from an interest in meteorology 

 and the investigation of atmospheric gases to the 

 enunciation of his atomic theory, was a veteran, an 

 honoured figure. Sedgwick, from the presidential 

 chair of the Association in 1833, referred to him in 

 characteristic phraseology. ' There is a philosopher 

 sitting among us/ he said, ' whose hair is blanched by 

 time, but possessing an intellect still in its healthiest 

 vigour a man whose whole life has been devoted 

 to the cause of truth my venerable friend Dr. 

 Dalton. Without any powerful apparatus for making 

 philosophical experiments, with an apparatus, indeed, 

 which many might think almost contemptible, and 

 with very limited external means for employing his 

 great natural powers, he has gone straight forward 

 in his distinguished course, and has obtained for 

 himself in those branches of knowledge which he has 

 cultivated, a name not perhaps equalled by that of 

 any other living philosopher in the world. From the 

 hour he came from his mother's womb the God of 

 nature laid His hand upon him and ordained him for 

 the ministration of high philosophy. But his natural 

 talents, great as they are, and his almost intuitive 

 skill in tracing the relations of material phenomena, 

 would have been of comparatively little value to 

 himself and to society, had there not been super- 

 added to them a beautiful moral simplicity and 

 singleness of heart, which made him go on steadily 

 in the way he saw before him, without turning to the 

 right hand or to the left, and taught him to do homage 

 to no authority before that of truth. Fixing his 

 eye on the most extensive views of science, he has 

 been not only a successful experimenter, but a 

 philosopher of the highest order. His experiments 



