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CHAPTER XII. 



SEQUEL TO THE EPOCH OF YOUNG AND FRESNEL. 

 RECEPTION OP THE UNDULATORY THEORY. 



WHEN Young, in 1800, published his assertion 

 of the Principle of Interferences, as the true 

 theory of optical phenomena, the condition of Eng- 

 land was not very favourable to a fair appreciation 

 of the value of the new opinion. The men of 

 science were strongly pre-occupied in favour of the 

 doctrine of emission, not only from a national 

 interest in Newton's glory, and a natural reverence 

 for his authority, but also from deference towards 

 the geometers of France, who were looked up to as 

 our masters in the application of mathematics to 

 physics, and who were understood to be Newtonians 

 in this as in other subjects. A general tendency to 

 an atomic philosophy, which had begun to appear 

 from the time of Newton, operated powerfully; and 

 the hypothesis of emission was so easily conceived, 

 that, when recommended by high authority, it easily 

 became popular; while the hypothesis of lumini- 

 ferous undulations, unavoidably difficult to compre- 

 hend, even by the aid of steady thought, was neg- 

 lected, and all but forgotten. 



Yet the reception which Young's opinions met 

 with was more harsh than we might have expected, 



ir H2 



