236 Memoir of the Life of Dr. Thomas Young. 
to be ruffled in temper. Whatever he determined on he did. He 
had little faith in any peculiar aptitude being implanted by nature for 
any given pursuits. His favorite maxim was, that whatever one man 
had done, another might do; that the original difference between 
human intellects was much less than it was generally supposed to be; 
that strenuous and persevering attention would accomplish almost 
any thing ; and at this season, in the confidence of youth and con- 
sciousness of his own powers, he considered nothing which had been 
compassed by others beyond his reach to achieve, nor was there 
any thing which he thought worthy to be attempted which he was not 
resolved to master. 
His biographer thinks, with justice, that ‘ this self conducted edu- 
cation in privacy was not without its disadvantages—that though the 
acquirements he was making were great, he was not gaining that 
which is acquired insensibly in the conflict of equals in the com- 
merce of the world—the facility of communicating knowledge in 
the form that shall be most immediately comprehended by others, 
and the tact in putting it forth that shall render its value immediately 
appreciated.’ 
His first communications to the press were made in 1791, through 
the medium of the ‘ Monthly Review,’ and the ‘Gentleman’s Maga- 
zine ;’ and towards the end of 1792 he established himself in lodg- 
ings in Westminster, where he resided two years, attending the lec- 
tures of Baillie and Cruickshank on anatomy, and was during that 
period, a diligent pupil of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. 
In 1793, he made a tour in the west of England, principally to 
study the mineralogy of Cornwall; and about this time the Duke of 
Richmond, then Master-General of the Ordnance, who had long been 
a friend of his uncle, offered him the situation of assistant-secretary 
in his house. Mr. Burke and Mr. Windham recommended him 
to proceed to Cambridge and study the law, but his own predilec- 
tions and habits decided him, upon due consideration, to determine 
in favor of the practice of physic, as most congenial to his scientific 
pursuits, and to which the position occupied by his uncle seemed to 
offer a favorable introduction. 
In this year he communicated to the Royal Society his Observa- 
tions on Vision, and his Theory of the Muscularity of the Crystalline 
Lens of the Eye, which became the object of much discussion : 
John Hunter laying claim to having previously made the discovery. 
‘Dr. Young was soon after elected a fellow of the Royal Society, 
