Chemical Works. 91 



logic ; and he has left us some of the noblest examples of the efficacy 

 of that great instrument of human reason in the discovery of truth. 

 He applied it, not only to connect classes of facts of more limited 

 extent and importance, but to develope great and comprehensive 

 laws, which embrace phenomena, that are almost universal to the 

 natural world. In explaining those laws, he cast upon them the illu- 

 mination of his ov/n clear and vivid conceptions ; — he fell an intense 

 admiration of the beauty, order, and harmony, which are conspicu- 

 ous in the perfect Chemistry of Nature ; — and he expressed those 

 feelings with a force of eloquence which could issue only from a mind 

 of the highest powers, and of the finest sensibilities. With much less 

 enthusiasm from temperament, Dr. WoUaston was endowed with bodi- 

 ly senses of extraordinary acuteness and accuracy, and with great gen- 

 eral vigor of understanding. Trained in the discipline of the exact 

 sciences, he had acquired a powerful command over his attention, 

 and had habituated himself to the most rigid correctness, both of 

 thought and of language. He was sufficiently provided with the re- 

 sources of the mathematics, to be enabled to pursue, with success, 

 profound enquiries in mechanical and optical philosophy, the results 

 of which enabled him to unfold the causes of phenomena, not before 

 understood, and to enrich the arts, connected with those sciences, by 

 the invention of ingenious and valuable instruments. In Chemistry, 

 he was distinguished by the extreme nicety and delicacy of his ob- 

 servations ; by the quickness and precision, with which he marked 

 resemblances and discriminated differences; the sagacity with which 

 he devised experiments, and anticipated their results 5 and the skill, 

 with which he executed the analysis of fragments of new substances, 

 often so minute as to be scarcely perceptible by ordinary eyes. He 

 was remarkable, too, for the caution, with which he advanced from 

 facts to general conclusions 5 a caution which, if it sometimes pre- 

 vented him from reaching at once to the most sublime truths, yet 

 rendered every step of his ascent a secure station, from which it was 

 easy to rise to higher and more enlarged inductions. Thus these il- 

 lustrious men, though differing essentially in their natural powers and 

 acquired habits, and moving, independently of each other, in different 

 paths, contributed to accomplish the same great ends — the evolving of 

 new elements; the combining of matter into new forms; the increase 

 of human happiness by the improvement of the arts of civilized lile ; 

 and the establishment of general laws, that will serve to guide other 

 philosophers onwards, through vast and unexplored regions of scieu- 

 lifjc discovery.' 



