220 Scieiitific Labors and Charade?' of 



look upon the genius of childhood or youth, while undetermined In 

 its choice of objects, as wandering unconfined, and as liable to be 

 fixed and bound by any object upon which it may chance to light, 

 that is powerful enough to arrest it ; like those meteors which are 

 said to be wandering in the regions of space, that have never yet 

 found a resting place, but are liable to have their orbits determined 

 by any grand luminary near which they may happen to pass, around 

 which they forever afterwards revolve. The impressions of admi- 

 ration produced by any incident that strongly arrests the attention of 

 a child, are to be sedulously guarded against when the object is dan- 

 gerous, and as sedulously cherished when the object is elevated and 

 good. While many a child of genius has had its ambition turned into 

 a noble channel by strong examples of the rewards of virtue, many 

 others, like Hannibal, have burned through life with unhallowed fire 

 that was kindled in the bosom of the child. But whether we suppose 

 that the genius of Davy was originally adapted to chemical pursuits, 

 or that some incident connected with this science powerfully excited 

 his admiration, we cannot but regard his choice as most fortunate ; not 

 because powers like his would not have reached \he highest elevation 

 in many other spheres of action, but because the talents required to 

 make an accomplished chemist are peculiar and extraordinary, imply- 

 ing as they do the union of a dexterous hand with a discriminating 

 eye and a logical mind ; the whole being kept in steady and vigorous 

 action by untiring diligence. 



With all these qualities in their highest degree, Davy took tlie field. 

 He gives us the date at which he commenced his chemical studies.* 

 It was in March, 1798 j and only two years afterwards, in 1800, ap- 

 peared his " Researches," a book evincing great skill in chemical 

 analysis, and publishing to the world, a great number of original ex- 

 periments and discoveries. In the preface to this work he observes, 

 'early experience has. taught me the folly of hasty generalization.' 

 He probably alludes here to an hypothesis which he had already 

 framed and made public in the " West Country Contributions," con- 

 tained in an essay on heat, light, &.c. Nothing is more natural than 

 for a young enthusiast to proceed at once from the knowledge of a 

 few facts to the formation of hypotheses, which subvert all the estab- 

 lished principles of science. We are not surprised to find our author 

 yielding to this propensity ; but we are truly surprised to find him 



* Researtlies, p. -153. 



