Biographical Memoir of William C. Redfield. 445 



investigate ; and logical powers to draw tlie proper conclusions. 

 The impress of Lis originality he left, in early life, upon the vil- 

 lage were he resided ; he aftei wards imprinted it still deeper on 

 his professional business, as naval engineer; and most of all on 

 his scientific labors, his observations, and his theories. "Patient 

 thought" was the motto of Newton, and in this attribute, Bed- 

 field was eminently distinguished. In collecting facts bearing 

 upon his main purpose, and in submitting ihem to severe and 

 long continued comparison, he has illustrated this quality in its 

 highest forms, as his laborious investigations of the phenomena of 

 hundreds of storms, most fully evince. Originality to invent 

 without patienc©' to investigate, leads to hasty and wild specula- 

 tions ; but united they lay the deep foundations for a severe logic. 

 His powers of reasoning have always appeared to me to be of 

 high order, and he has been fitly characterized by another emi- 

 nent writer* on the laws of storms, as the *' clear-headed" Red- 

 field. Opinions which he had thus foi-med, after an extensive and 

 patient investigation of the facts, and a severe process of reason- 

 ing, he held with great tenacity. But though firm, he was not 

 obstinate. Obstinacy we define to be an unyielding adherence to 

 our opinions because we have adopted them : firmness^ a similar 

 adherence to our opinions, because we believe them to be right. 



Few men have given more signal proof of an original inherent 

 love of knowledge Whether we contemplate the apprentice-boy 

 after the toils of the day, seeking for knowledge by the dim light 

 of an open fire: or the father of a young family, through dark 

 scenes of domestic affliction and mournful bereavements, still ad- 

 ding largely year by year to his intellectual stores; or the man ot 

 business in the whirl of the great metropolis, loaded with onerous 

 and responsible cares, giving every interval of leisure, and the 

 seasons chiefly employed in pleasure or repose to the study of the 

 laws of nature ; or if permitted, as has been my privilege, to be 

 a guest at the house fitted up to be the retreat of his old age, 

 we seethe library, the collections of natural history, the many 

 sources of high mental enjoyment, which in the period gained at 

 last of ease and affluence, distinguish the diff"erent apartments 

 of his dwelling ; or finally whether we call to mind the ever in- 

 creasing interest with which he attended the meetings of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science, and thede- 



* Reid. 



