470 HISTORY OF OPTICS. 



an answer, which was ably written, but being pub- 

 lished separately had little circulation. We can 

 hardly doubt that these Edinburgh reviews had 

 their effect in confirming the general disposition to 

 reject the undulatory theory. 



We may add, however, that Young's mode of 

 presenting his opinions was not the most likely to 

 win them favour ; for his mathematical reasonings 

 placed them out of the reach of popular readers, 

 while the want of symmetry and system in his 

 symbolical calculations, deprived them of attrac- 

 tiveness for the mathematician. He himself gave 

 a very just criticism of his own style of writing, 

 in speaking on another of his works 3 : "The ma- 

 thematical reasoning, for want of mathematical 

 symbols, was not understood, even by tolerable 

 mathematicians. From a dislike of the affectation 

 of algebraical formality which he had observed in 

 some foreign authors, he was led into something 

 like an affectation of simplicity, which was equally 

 inconvenient to a scientific reader." 



Young appears to have been aware of his own 

 deficiency in the power of drawing public favour, 

 or even notice, to his discoveries. In 1802, Davy 

 writes to a friend, " Have you seen the theory of 

 my colleague, Dr. Young, on the undulations of an 

 ethereal medium as the cause of light? It is not 

 likely to be a popular hypothesis, after what has 

 been said by Newton concerning it. He would be 



3 See Life of Young, p. 54. 



