(469.) 
Young’s 
farther re- 
searches 
chiefly 
anony- 
mous. 
His articles 
in the 
Quarterly 
Review, 
and Ency- 
clopadia 
Britannica. 
900 
this, can we talk of light as moving in straight lines 
only ? 
We must now advert to the peculiar and disadvan- 
tageous manner in which Dr Young laid his farther 
researches before the world. The optical papers in the 
Philosophical Transactions, ending with 1803, were 
the last which he published connected with his theory 
in that work, although he continued to be Foreign Se- 
cretary until his death twenty-five years afterwards, 
and although during all that time he never ceased to 
extend and perfect his views on the subject of his predi- 
lection. The explanation of this paradox is to be found 
principally in the strictness with which he interpreted 
the allegiance which he owed to the medical profes- 
sion. He had determined to be a practical physician ; 
his early principles of action prevented him from 
doing anything by halves ; and all experience affirmed, 
that to gain confidence as a physician inthe metropolis 
he must cultivate sparingly, and as it were by stealth, 
the studies of abstract science and of philology in which 
he delighted. Unquestionably he was also disgusted 
by the absence of one single supporter amongst the 
members of the great society referred to,—by the in- 
jurious petulance of the then popular critical journal, 
—and by the impossibility under which he laboured 
of communicating orally his knowledge to a general 
audience in an interesting and acceptable manner. 
The result of all this was the suppression of many of 
his opinions, and the publication of others in so con- 
cealed and uninviting a form that they remained 
for years nearly buried and unknown to men of 
science. He contributed a series of articles on sub- 
jects connected with light to the Quarterly Review ; 
and we may well smile at the abstruse and really ob- 
secure dissertations on detached points of science— 
often unmercifully loaded with algebra—thus inter- 
spersed with articles of popular criticism for the enter- 
tainment of the reading public. From some of these 
papers we may readily gather the soreness which he 
felt at the cold reception of his discoveries. Farther 
and still more important original speculations were 
contained in a series of anonymous papers (sixty- 
three in number) on a vast variety of subjects, both in 
science and philology, contributed to the Encyclope- 
dia Britannica, Itis not in a work such as this that 
we usually look for the jirst publication of great and 
original views : the articles being anonymous could 
only very gradually attract notice by their intrinsic 
merit; and the obscurity of some of those written by 
Young rendered this difficult enough. But it is most 
fortunate that he was induced thus to write : many of 
his most original thoughts must have been lost but for 
these concealed repositories. In the articles in the 
Quarterly Review, for example, we watch with interest 
the impression which contemporary discoveries made 
upon his mind. The spheroidal wave of extraordinary 
refraction is explained by unequal elasticity of the 
MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
crystal in different directions ;1 the discovery of polar- 
ization by reflection is received with characteristic can- 
dour, as giving a temporary blow to the undulatory 
theory ;? whilst in a later paper the cause of chromatic 
polarization is convincingly deduced from the prin- 
ciple of interferences, and in the space of two lines 
the peculiar coloured lamine occurring in Iceland 
spar, which had been noticed by several experi- 
menters, are accounted for.? 
From about 1815 the optical discoveries of Young 
were so intimately connected with those of his younger 
friend and rival Fresnel, that it seems best to defer 
our account of them until we consider (in § 3 of this 
chapter) the peculiar researches of Fresnel, which 
ultimately rendered the phenomena of polarization 
the most impregnable position of the partizans of the 
undulatory theory. The first great step was the con- 
ception of transversevibrations of ether, as constituting 
polarization. This, as we shall see, was first pub- 
lished by Young. It is to be regretted that the tardy 
and imperfect publication of Fresnel’s memoirs on 
the one hand, and the resolution of Young to adhere 
to an anonymous and indirect mode of announcing 
his discoveries, on the other, render the history of 
the subject sometimes obscure. The correspondence 
between them, first fully published by Dr Peacock, 
throws some light upon it; but several important 
letters have not been recovered. 
I had intended devoting a portion of this section to 
Dr Young’s important and ingenious researches on the Physiology 
of vision ; 
physiology of vision. But the length towhichit has al- 
ready extended obliges me reluctantly to omit it. I also 
refer to the chapter on mechanics (Art. 344, &c.) for 
some notice of his masterly reasonings on the princi- 
ples of carpentry and the flexure of elastic substances. 
They are characterized by directness of purpose and 
a consummate command of ordinary mathematics, 
unaccompanied by any pretension to symbolical dis- 
play ;—it might be added too, by the obscure concise- 
ness of Dr Young's habitual style. His researches (pre- 
ceding and anticipating those of Laplace) on capillary 
attraction have also been referred to (432), as well as 
his masterly investigation of the tides (80, 81). It 
does not belong to this treatise to speak of his disco- 
very of the interpretation of hieroglyphies in certain 
cases which gave the first rea] impulse to this obseure 
but interesting subject. The successes of Champollion, 
Rawlinson, and others, in similar undertakings, must 
logically be connected with the first great step of de- 
cyphering the polyglot stone of Rosetta. It may safely 
be affirmed that no philologer ever before made such 
a discovery in science as the law of interference, and 
that no natural philosopher ever made such a step 
in the interpretation of a lost tongue as the forma- 
tion (up to acertain point) of an Egyptian alphabet. 
We cannot close this imperfect sketch of one of 
the greatest ornaments of our age and nation, without 
1 Quart. Rev., vol. ii. 
2 Thid., vol. iii. 
% Tbid., vol. xi. 
[Diss. VI. 
(470.) 
polarized 
li 
ght de- 
ferred to 
§ 3. 
(471.) 
interpre- 
tation of 
hierogly- 
phies. 
(472.) 
