198 Literary and Philosophical Society. 



CHAPTER IX. 



John Dalton. 



WE have now given some slight account of the more active 

 men who began this Society, with some notice of their 

 labours and modes of thinking : men who seem to have 

 come out of darkness, and who were conscious of coming 

 into light. Their eyes were brighter than those of their 

 neighbours ; they look to us now like messengers first 

 appearing on the top of the mountains bringing good 

 tidings. The earliest are not, however, the angelic mes- 

 sengers themselves, the men of genius. Soon there arrived 

 amongst them a man of much greater vigour ; his education 

 was meagre, he could not make Latin quotations with Dr. 

 Percival, or search into early Classic writings with Dr. 

 Falconer ; his knowledge of Greek was but slight, and 

 gained from a little-used Schrevelius ; his manners were 

 not formed amongst men who attended the Court ; he kept 

 no private carriage, and invited no one to dine with him. 

 He did not even read much poetry, and he thought little 

 in the region of metaphysics, although he practised Chris- 

 tian ethics and lived in harmony with all around him ; but 

 the whole force of his mind was directed to the explanation 

 of natural phenomena. The Academy, which we consider 

 an offshoot from Warrington, was in want of a teacher of 

 mathematics, and applied to Mr. John Gough, of Kendal, 



