224 Scientific Labors and Character of 



the sight of the persons about me. My emotions were entliusiastic 

 and subhme ; and for a minute I walked round the room perfectly 

 regardless of what was said to me. As I recovered my former state 

 of mind, I felt an inclination to communicate the discoveries I had 

 made during the experiment. I endeavored to recal the ideas : they 

 were feeble and indistinct. One collection of terms, however, pre- 

 sented itself; and with the most intense belief and prophetic manner, 

 I exclaimed to Doctor Kinglake, " JVothing exists but thoughts ! — 

 the universe is composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and pains .'"* 



The impunity with which Davy had sustained these wonderful tri- 

 als, emboldened him to attempt the respiration of the deadly gases 

 from charcoal. His first attempt was made upon four quarts of car- 

 buretted hydrogen gas, of which he made three inspirations. " The 

 first inspiration produced a sort of numbness and loss of feeling in the 

 chest and about the pectoral muscles. After the second inspiration, 

 I lost all power of perceiving external things, and had no distinct sen- 

 sation except a terrible oppression on the chest. During the third in- 

 spiration, this feeling disappeared, — I seemed sinking into annihilation, 

 and had just power enough to drop the mouth-piece from my un- 

 closed lips. A short interval must have passed during which I respir- 

 ed common air before the objects about me were distinguishable. 

 On recollecting myself, I faintly articulated, / do not think I shall 

 die. Putting my finger on my wrist, I found my pulse thread-like 

 and beating with excessive quickness." Extreme giddiness, loss of 

 memory, and numbness succeeded, with excruciating pain in the 

 forehead and between the eyes, with transient pains in the chest and 

 extremities. 



In these experiments, which we cannot but condemn for their te- 

 merity, it is evident that Davy narrowly escaped being numbered 

 among the early martyrs of science. He has finally died of apoplexy ; 

 and we can scarcely refrain from believing that his constitution, which 

 was so vigorous in youth, withered and decayed long before it reached 

 old age, from tlie effects of these early injuries ; like some tree of no- 

 ble growth, which fades and casts its leaves, ere it reaches the au- 

 tumn, in consequence of wounds inflicted while in its vernal bloom. 



Knowledge is proverbially quiet and serencj and little has been either 

 said or thought of the heroism of men of science. But they some- 

 times encounter danger as real as those which are braved in the field 



* Researches, 487. 



