Life of Thomas Young : M.D., F.R.S., &c.; and one of the eight foreign associates of the National institute of France / by George Peacock.

  • George Peacock
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life of Thomas Young : M.D., F.R.S., &c.; and one of the eight foreign associates of the National institute of France / by George Peacock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    degree, the formation of those habits of perseverance in labouring to conquer every difficulty, however for- midable it might appear to be, by which he was so remarkably distinguished, and which enabled him, even from his boyhood, to work out his own educa- tion with little comparative assistance or direction from others. The details of this education—which made him at an early period of life an accurate classical scholar; perfectly familar with the principal European languages; well acquainted with mathematics, and with almost every department of natural philosophy and natural history ; profoundly versed in medical and anatomical knowledge, and in possession of more than ordinary personal and ornamental accomplishments—must necessarily possess no common interest and value; not merely as explain- ing the formation of his own intellectual habits and character, but as illustrating the progress of the human mind in one of the most remarkable examples of its development ; and it may be considered fortunate, that the materials for avery minute history of his early studies and occupations exist, m his very ample journals, in his letters to his relatives and others, and in the notes which he has left behind him, upon most of the books which he read for the first twenty years or more of his life.* * Amongst these are two thick volumes, entitled Studia Quotidiana, con- taining an account—in many cases with copious extracts—of every book which he read from the year 1789 to the summer of 1794; with notices of his botanical and entomological observations, the greatest part of which is written in Latin. ‘There are also, in three smaller volumes, ample notes of all the medical and anatomical lectures which he attended in London in 1793 and 1794: to these may be added minute and very carefully written journals of his studies at Edinburgh and at Gottingen, and of his journeys in Scotland and Germany in 1795, 1796, and 1797: and also a nearly unbroken series of letters to his uncle Dr. Brocklesby during the greatest part of this period.
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