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The man Who Knew Everything

Andrew Robinson marvels at the brain power and breadth of knowledge of the 18th-century polymath Thomas Young. He examines his relationship with his contemporaries, particularly with the French Egyptologist Champollion, and how he has been viewed subsequently by historians.

ORTUNATE NEWTON, happy professor of at childhood of science!’ Albert the newly founded Royal Institution, F Einstein wrote in 1931 in his where in 1802-03 he delivered what foreword to the fourth edition of is generally regarded as the most far- Newton’s influential treatise Opticks, reaching series of lectures ever given originally published in 1704. by a ; a physician at a major London hospital, St George’s, for a Nature to him was an open book, quarter of a century; the secretary of whose letters he could read without the Admiralty’s Board of Longitude effort. ... Reflection, refraction, the and superintendent of its vital Nauti- formation of images by lenses, the cal Almanac from 1818 until his mode of operation of the eye, the death; and ‘inspector of calculations’ spectral decomposition and recom- for a leading life insurance company position of the different kinds of in the 1820s. In 1794, he was elected , the invention of the reflecting a fellow of the Royal Society at the telescope, the first foundations of age of barely twenty-one, became its colour theory, the elementary theory foreign secretary at the age of thirty, of the pass by us in and turned down its presidency in procession, and finally come his his fifties. No wonder, the organizers observations of the colours of thin of an exhibition at London’s Science films as the origin of the next great Thomas Young, painted by Sir Thomas Museum in 1973 stated: theoretical advance, which had to Lawrence in the 1820s. await, over a hundred years, the Young probably had a wider range of coming of Thomas Young. some phonetic elements, an ‘alpha- creative learning than any other bet’, for spelling non-Egyptian Englishman in history. He made Everyone who studies at names like Ptolemy and Cleopatra. discoveries in nearly every field he school is taught that Thomas Young Less well known is that Young was a studied. (1773-1829) was the English scientist physiologist who was the first to who first demonstrated – with a explain how the human eye focuses Born to a Quaker family in Somer- candle, a pair of narrow slits and a on objects at varying distances; who set, Young was a child prodigy, who white screen – that light was a , discovered the phenomenon of astig- later trained as a physician in Lon- thus disproving Newton’s conviction matism; and who in 1801 proposed don, Edinburgh and Göttingen and that it consisted of a stream of par- the three-colour theory of vision, at Cambridge, where he was known ticles. Equally, anyone who studies finally confirmed experimentally in to the students as ‘Phenomenon’ will know that Young 1959. Young with a mixture of respect and was the linguist and antiquarian who In addition, Young was a major derision. He has never lacked for ‘cracked’ the two Egyptian scripts on scholar of ancient Greek; a phen- admirers among great . Just the , which then omenal linguist who, after compar- after Young’s death, the astronomer launched the full decipherment of ing the vocabulary and grammar of Sir called him a ‘truly the by Jean- some 400 , in 1813 intro- original genius’ and added that ‘to François Champollion in the 1820s. duced the term Indo-European to do anything approaching to justice Young was the first to show that describe the family that to his reputation … would call for demotic to some extent resembled includes Greek, Latin and Sanskrit; the exercise of powers more nearly hieroglyphic visually, hence demotic and an extraordinarily prolific and allied to his own than I can pretend was derived from hieroglyphic, and authoritative writer, mainly for the to boast’. Later in the century, the demotic was not an alphabet like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, on all man- physicist and physiologist Hermann Greek alphabet on the Rosetta Stone ner of other subjects from carpentry von Helmholtz stated that Young but rather a mixture of phonetic and music to life insurance and signs and hieroglyphic signs. This ocean tides, as well as biographies of ... was one of the most acute men who thinking led Young to suggest that eminent scientists and scholars. His ever lived, but had the misfortune to hieroglyphic, too, might contain professional appointments included: be too far in advance of his contem-

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bered today for being the first per- This applies very well to Young in son to identify clearly the similarities respect of his research on ancient between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Egypt – which is probably the part of Gothic (Germanic), Celtic and Old his work of greatest interest to most Persian (the language family which historians. Young’s ability to deci- Young then dubbed ‘Indo-Euro- pher the Rosetta Stone and ancient pean’) – but Jones worked in many Egyptian papyruses was undoubtedly other fields too. An Oxford Universi- fed by his powers of mathematical ty symposium on the bicentenary of analysis and scientific intuition, by his death in 1994, edited by Murray, his philological scholarship in required separate contributions ancient Greek and Oriental lan- from a Sanskritist and an Arabist, a guages, by his immersion since child- theologian, a lawyer (Jones was a hood in the civilizations of the classi- judge) and an anthropologist, cal world, and by his exceptionally among others. Murray acutely detailed knowledge of the history of remarked: ideas in science and medicine, evi- dent in all his publications, especially History is unkind to polymaths. No his greatest work, A Course of Lectures biographer will readily tackle a sub- in Natural Philosophy and the Mechani- ject whose range of skills far exceeds cal Arts, derived from his Royal Insti- Young’s work of 1815 on consumption, his own, while the rest of us, with or tution lectures and published in in which he drew on his experience of 1807, the second volume of which contracting the disease as a teenager. consists of a systematized and anno- tated catalogue containing 20,000 articles ranging from the ancient poraries. They looked on him with Greeks up to 1805. Yet, having said astonishment, but could not follow all this, Young’s contribution to the his bold speculations, and thus a mass hieroglyphic decipherment is fre- of his important thoughts remained quently underplayed and sometimes buried and forgotten in the Trans- even virtually dismissed in favour of actions of the Royal Society until a Champollion’s. Indeed, the dispute later generation by slow degrees between them has become the most arrived at the rediscovery of his notorious in the history of archaeo- discoveries, and came to appreciate logical decipherment, still partly the force of his arguments and the unresolved to this day. accuracy of his conclusions. Young stated that Champollion Diagram of the eye, from A Course of had built his system of reading hiero- While in 1899, lecturing on the Lectures on Natural Philosophy (1807). glyphics on Young’s own discoveries centenary of the Royal Institution, and his hieroglyphic ‘alphabet’, the physicist Lord Rayleigh declared published in various articles and in a simply: ‘it was seldom that [Young] without biographies to read, have no was wrong’. A century later, in 2005, mental ‘slot’ in which to keep a poly- a Nobel laureate in physics, Philip math’s memory fresh. So the poly- Anderson, summarized Young’s math gets forgotten or, at best, achievements as follows: squashed into a category we can recognize, in the way Goethe is He elucidated the of the eye, remembered as a poet, despite his the wave theory of light, the laws of claim to have been a scientist, or elasticity, the nature of the Egyptian Hume as a philosopher, for all the six hieroglyphic writing, and Lord knows dumpy volumes of his History of Eng- how many other subjects. land. [Yet,] There are times when a mind of exceptional range, bestriding Among non-scientists, Young’s many conventional disciplines, makes position has been less secure. His a breakthrough in each because he reputation, like those of Robert knows the others, and all of them go Hooke, and on their way, afterwards, without Alexander von Humboldt, has suf- necessarily recognizing what he did or fered from his being a polymath. how he did it. If history is not to be Polymathy is disturbing, especially to chronically misremembered, it follows specialists, as historian Alexander that a constant effort must be made – Murray noted in connection with Sir as constant as the mechanism that William ‘Oriental’ Jones (1746-94), a pulls invisibly in the other direction – Calculations from the Nautical Almanac polymath of the generation before to recall those polymathic minds that of 1822, for which Young acted as Young’s. Jones is primarily remem- have made these critical turns. superintendent (i.e. chief calculator).

54 HISTORY TODAY APRIL 2006 major supplement to the Encyclopae- ‘Scientific researches! – new discoveries Young his due, admits: dia Britannica in 1815-19. While pay- in pneumaticks! – or an experimental ing generous tribute to Champol- lecture on the powers of air’, published ... the suspicion may easily arise, and lion’s unrivalled progress from 1822 in May 1802 by James Gillray, probably often has done, that any eulogy of onwards, Young wanted his early shows Young, watched by Humphry Thomas Young must be intended as a steps recognized. This Champollion Davy, administering laughing gas to Sir denigration of Champollion. This was adamantly unwilling to concede. J.C. Hippisley, one of the managers of would be shameful coming from an Just weeks before Young’s death in the Royal Institution. Egyptologist. 1829, Champollion, writing in the midst of his expedition to ancient Then there is the cult of genius: Egypt – he was then at Thebes in the on the hieroglyphs, partly because many of us prefer to believe in the Valley of the Kings (a place he had Champollion was an honoured primacy of unaccountable moments just named) – exulted to his brother: fellow-countryman. Thus, a recent of inspiration over the less glam- French book by Robert Solé and the orous virtues of step-by-step, rational So poor Dr Young is incorrigible? Egyptologist Dominique Valbelle, teamwork. Champollion maintained Why flog a mummified horse? Thank The Rosetta Stone: The Story of the that his advances came almost exclu- M. Arago [a French physicist] for the Decoding of Hieroglyphics, deliberately sively out of his own mind, arising arrows he shot so valiantly in honour omits the trenchant criticism of from his indubitably passionate devo- of the Franco-Pharaonic alphabet. Champollion’s character written to tion to ancient Egypt. He pictured The Brit can do whatever he wants – Young in 1815 by Champollion’s for- himself for the public as a ‘lone it will remain ours: and all of old mer teacher Sylvestre de Sacy (who genius’ who solved the riddle of will learn from young France warned Young that Champollion ancient Egypt’s writing single-hand- how to spell hieroglyphs using an might plagiarize his work); it also edly. The fact that Young was known entirely different method ... May the omits other episodes in which Cham- primarily for his work in fields other doctor continue to agitate about the pollion is generally held to have sup- than Egyptian studies, and that he alphabet while I, having been for six pressed an erroneous publication of published on Egypt anonymously in months among the monuments of his own and to have failed to 1815-19 (to protect his professional Egypt, I am startled by what I am acknowledge a crucial inscriptional reputation as a physician), made reading fluently rather than what my clue concerning Cleopatra provided Champollion’s solitary self-image eas- imagination is able to come up with. by the antiquarian William Bankes. ily believable for most people. It is a Egyptologists, who are best placed discomforting thought, especially for The nationalistic – at to understand the intellectual ‘nitty- a specialist, that a non-specialist times evident in Young’s writings too gritty’ of the dispute, are drawn to might enter an academic field, trans- – have to some extent bedevilled Champollion more than Young form it, and then move on to work in honest discussion of Young and because he founded their subject. an utterly different field. Champollion ever since. Even Even John Ray, a professor of Egyp- Lastly, Young and Champollion Young’s friend in physics, Domin- tology at Cambridge University who were highly contrasting personalities. ique Arago, turned against his work has done most in recent years to give Champollion had tunnel vision (‘for-

APRIL 2006 HISTORY TODAY 55 tunately for our subject’, says Ray); British Men of Science in 1807-08, develop them. As a result, some was prone to fits of euphoria and including Young (circled). scholars seriously misjudge him. Not despair; and had personally led an knowing of his fairness in recogniz- uprising against the French king in holding a candle in our hand, Rosel- ing other scientists’ contributions Grenoble, for which he was put on lini, Ricci, I and one of our Arabs and his fanatical truthfulness in his trial. The polymath Young, who had went through this astonishing cave. own scientific work, they jump to the a total lack of engagement with party conclusion that Young’s attitude to politics, was a man who ‘could not Such a perilous adventure would Champollion was chiefly envious. bear, in the most common conversa- probably not have appealed to The classicist Maurice Pope (1999) tion, the slightest degree of exagger- Young, even in his careless youth as called Young, ‘a man with a ation, or even of colouring’ (said his an accomplished horseman rough- grievance … [who] clearly hankered closest friend, the antiquarian and ing it in the Scottish Highlands. His for something with a promise of politician Hudson Gurney). motive for deciphering the Egyptian immortality in it.’ The Champollion Young never went to Egypt, and scripts was fundamentally philo- biographers Lesley and Roy Adkins never wanted to go. In founding an logical and scientific, not aesthetic (2000) are explicit: ‘while maintain- Egyptian Society in London in 1817, and cultural (unlike his attitude to ing civil relations with his rival, to publish as many ancient inscrip- the classical literature of Greece and tions and manuscripts as possible, so Rome). Many Egyptologists tend not The library of the Royal Institution, as to aid the decipherment, Young to sympathize with this motive. They 1809, which had been founded by Count remarked that funds were needed also know little about Young’s scien- Rumford ten years earlier to promote ‘for employing some poor Italian or tific work and his renown as some- the application of science. Young gave Maltese to scramble over Egypt in one who initiated many new areas of famously wide-ranging discourses at the search of more.’ Champollion, by scientific enquiry and left others to RI in 1802-03. contrast, had long dreamt of visiting Egypt and doing exactly what Young had depreciated, ever since he saw the hieroglyphs as a boy; and when he finally got there, he was able to pass for a native, given his swarthy complexion and his excellent com- mand of Arabic. In his wonderfully readable and ebullient Egyptian Diaries, Champollion describes enter- ing the temple of Ramses the Great at Abu Simbel, which was blocked by millennia of sand:

I almost entirely undressed, wearing only my Arab shirt and long under- wear, and pressed myself on my stomach through the small aperture of a doorway which, unearthed, would have been at least 25 feet high. It felt as if I was climbing through the heart of a furnace and, gliding completely into the temple, I entered an atmosphere rising to 52 degrees:

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publication, Rudiments of an Egyptian lic would have been more benefited Dictionary in the Ancient Enchorial by his confining his exertions within Character, Containing All the Words of narrower limits, is a question of great Which the Sense Has Been Ascertained, doubt. ‘thirty years ago, not a single article of the list [of words in the dictio- For those of us who feel instinc- nary] existed even in the imagina- tively drawn to versatility of genius, tion of the wildest enthusiast: and Young is an inspiration; others whose that within these ten years, a single taste is for genius with a narrow date only was tolerably ascertained, focus (like Champollion’s) will out of about fifty which are here regard Young with scepticism. What interpreted, and in many instances is undeniable, though, is that he ascertained with astronomical preci- really did approximate to ‘the last sion.’ John Ray sums up: man who knew everything’ – howev- er much he himself would have Young was the first person since the denied this – and we can safely say, end of the Roman Empire to be able with the endless expansion and

Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), who Young to the prize of deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822. Painting by Leon Cogniet.

Young’s jealousy had not ceased to fester.’ But such an emotion would have been out of character for Young, and it would have made little sense anyway given his scientific achievements and the fact that these were increasingly recognized from 1816 onwards – to begin with by French scientists. The truth is that for Champollion, the success of his decipherment was a matter of make- or-break as a scholar; for Young, his Egyptian research was essentially yet another fascinating avenue of knowl- edge to explore for his own amuse- to read a demotic text, and, in spite An illustration of a painting of Rameses IV ment. of a proportion of incorrect guesses, in the Valley of the Kings, from After 1822-24, when Champollion he surely deserves to be known as the Champollion’s Monuments of Egypt, 1835-45. published his landmark book, Young decipherer of demotic. It is no more or less gave up work on the disservice to Champollion to allow bifurcation of knowledge, that no hieroglyphs. But he continued to him this distinction. one will be able to stake this awe- work on the second undeciphered some claim ever again. Egyptian script found on the Rosetta A couple of years before his death, Stone, which Young called ‘enchori- in an autobiographical sketch writ- FOR FURTHER READING al’ but which Champollion termed ten for his favourite sister-in-law , Life of Thomas Young , M.D., F.R.S. ‘demotic’. At this point Champol- intended for a future posthumous (John Murray, 1855, republished by Thoemmes lion, for whatever reason, offered edition of the Encyclopaedia Britanni- Press, 2003);Andrew Robinson, The Last Man Young access to the swelling collec- ca, Young wrote of himself: Who Knew Everything:Thomas Young (Pi Press, tions of demotic manuscripts under 2006);Thomas Young, A Course of Lectures on his curatorship in the Muse- He might for example, have been Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts,2 vols um in Paris. On his deathbed, Young styled without impropriety and almost (Joseph Johnson, 1807, republished in 4 vols by could justifiably write in his final with equal justice, in the middle of a Thoemmes Press, 2002);Thomas Young, history of his life, a physician, a Miscellaneous Works of the Late Thomas Young, Young’s comparison of the last line of classical scholar, a linguist, an anti- M.D., F.R.S.,3 vols (John Murray, 1807, republished the Rosetta stone in the three scripts, quarian, a biographer, an optician, or by Thoemmes Press, 2003). hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. a mathematician ... Whether the pub- See page 62 for related articles on this subject in the History Today archive and details of special offers at www.historytoday.com Andrew Robinson is literary editor of The Times Higher Education Supplement and the author of a new biography of Thomas Young, The Last Man Who Knew Everything, Pi Press 2006.

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