Life of Count Rimiford. 485 



of this series of writers endeavors with marked candor 

 to recognize their respective services and merits in deal- 

 ing with the great subject of investigation common to 

 them and to other philosophic inquirers of the last and 

 the present age. He endeavors, indeed, to go farther, 

 and to trace and distribute among them the portion or 

 degree of honor which belongs to each of them for his 

 measure of success in working upon the new vein of 

 truth. This distribution, however, he finds to be 

 difficult. When many well-informed and acute minds 

 furnished alike with the stores and results already at- 

 tained in a special science, and starting from a position 

 already reached, look out with their unpatented instru- 

 ments and with their approved methods upon the open- 

 ing way of investigation for the future, with the themes 

 which instruct as well as tease their curiosity, it is not 

 easy always to assign to any one a discovery or an 

 advance which may be simultaneously made by many. 

 " Great discoveries belong not so much to individuals 

 as to humanity; they are less inspirations of genius 

 than births of eras." The history of science is full of 

 the records of these simultaneous discoveries, and the 

 biographies of philosophers too often are painful plead- 

 ings for rival claims. 



Dr. Youmans, in his introduction to his compilation, 

 gives a brief sketch of the life and career of Count 

 Rumford, substantially correct. After quoting the 

 sentence given above from Professor Tyndall, he adds 

 that, 



" If other English writers had been equally just, there would be 

 less necessity for the exposition of Rumford's labors and claims. 

 But," he continues, "there has been a manifest disposition in 

 various quarters to obscure and depreciate them. Dr. Whewell, 



