it would have weight, to which he replied, that it ought to have none whatever. There is no doubt his view was the just one. Yet such is the state of ignorance which exists on these subjects, that I have several times heard him mentioned as one of the greatest mathematicians of the age.[1] But in this as in all other points, the precision with which he comprehended and retained all he had ever learned, especially of the elementary applications of mathematics to physics, was such, that he possessed greater command over those subjects than many of far more extensive knowledge.
In associating with Wollaston, you perceived that the predominant principle was to avoid error; in the society of Davy, you saw that it was the desire to see and make known truth. Wollaston never could have been a poet; Davy might have been a great one.
A question which I put, successively, to each of these distinguished philosophers, will show how very differently a subject may be viewed by minds even of the highest order.
About the time Mr. Perkins was making his experiments on the compression of water, I was
- ↑ This of course could only have happened in England.
