BARATIERE

John Philip Baratiere was a most extraordinary instance of the early and rapid exertion of mental faculties. He was the son of Francis Baratiere, minister of the French church at Schwoback, near Nuremberg, where he was born, January 10, 1721. The French was his mother tongue, and German was the language of the people around him. His father talked to him in Latin, and with this he became familiar; so that, without knowing the rules of grammar, he, at four years of age, talked French to his mother, Latin to his father, and High Dutch to the servants and neighboring children, without mixing or confounding the respective languages.

About the middle of his fifth year, he acquired a knowledge of the Greek: so that in fifteen months he perfectly understood all the Greek books in the Old and New Testament, which he translated into Latin. When five years and eight months old, he entered upon Hebrew; and in three years more, was so expert in the Hebrew text, that, from a Bible without points, he could give the sense of the original in Latin or French, or translate, extempore, the Latin or French versions into Hebrew. He composed a dictionary of rare and difficult Hebrew words; and about his tenth year, amused himself, for twelve months, with the rabbinical writers.

He now obtained a knowledge of the Chaldaic, Syriac and Arabic; and acquired a taste for divinity and ecclesiastical antiquity, by studying the Greek fathers of the first four ages of the church. In the midst of these occupations, a pair of globes coming into his possession, he could, in eight or ten days, resolve all the problems upon them; and in January, 1735, at the age of fourteen, he devised his project for the discovery of the longitude, which he communicated to the Royal Society of London, and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin!

In June, 1731, he was matriculated in the university of Altorf; and at the close of 1732, he was presented by his father at the meeting of the reformed churches of the circle, at Franconia; who, astonished at his wonderful talents, admitted him to assist in the deliberations of the synod; and, to preserve the memory of so singular an event, it was registered in their acts. In 1734, the Margrave of Brandenburg, Anspach, granted this young scholar a pension of fifty florins; and his father receiving a call to the French church at Stettin, in Pomerania, young Baratiere was, on the journey, admitted master of arts. At Berlin, he was honored with several conversations with the king of Prussia, and was received into the Royal Academy.

Towards the close of his life, he acquired a considerable taste for medals, inscriptions, and antiquities, metaphysical inquiries, and experimental philosophy. He wrote several essays and dissertations; made astronomical remarks and laborious calculations; took great pains towards a history of the heresies of the Anti-Trinitarians, and of the thirty years' war in Germany. His last publication, which appeared in 1740, was on the succession of the bishops of Rome. The final work he engaged in, and for which he had gathered large materials, was Inquiries concerning the Egyptian Antiquities. But the substance of this blazing meteor was now almost exhausted; he was always weak and sickly, and died October 5th, 1740, aged nineteen years, eight months, and sixteen days. Baratiere published eleven different pieces, and left twenty-six manuscripts, on various subjects, the contents of which may be seen in his Life, written by Mr. Formey, professor of philosophy at Berlin.

GASSENDI

Pierre Gassendi, one of the most famous naturalists and philosophers of France, was born at Chantersier, January 22, 1592, of poor parents. They were, however, wise and virtuous people, and perceiving the extraordinary gifts of their son, did everything in their power to promote his education. At the age of four years, young Pierre used to declaim little sermons of his own composition, which were quite interesting. At the age of seven, he would steal away from his parents, and spend a great part of the night in observing the stars. This made his friends say he was born an astronomer. At this age, he had a dispute with some boys, whether it was the moon or the clouds that moved so rapidly; to convince them that it was the latter, he took them behind a tree, and made them take notice that the moon kept its situation between the same leaves, while the clouds passed on.

This early disposition to observation led his parents to place him under the care of the clergyman of the village, who gave him the first elements of learning.

His ardor for study then became extreme: the day was not long enough for him; and he often read a great part of the night by the light of the lamp that was burning in the church of the village, his family being too poor to allow him candles for his nocturnal studies. He often took only four hours sleep in the night. At the age of ten, he harangued his bishop in Latin, who was passing through the village on his visitation; and he did this with such ease and spirit, that the prelate exclaimed – "That lad will, one day or other, be the wonder of his age." The modest and unassuming conduct of Gassendi gave an additional charm to his talents.

In his manners, this remarkable youth was in general silent, never ostentatiously obtruding upon others, either the acuteness of his understanding, or the eloquence of his conversation; he was never in a hurry to give his opinion before he knew that of the persons who were conversing with him. When men of learning introduced themselves to him, he was contented with behaving to them with great civility, and was not anxious to surprise them into admiration. The entire tendency of his studies was to make himself wiser and better; and to have his intention more constantly before his eyes, he had all his books inscribed with these words, Sapere aude; "Dare to be wise."

Such was Gassendi's reputation, that at sixteen he was called to teach rhetoric at the seminary of Digne; in 1614, he was made professor of theology in the same institution; and two years after, he was invited to fill the chair of divinity and philosophy at Aix. After passing through various promotions, and publishing several works of great merit on philosophical subjects, Gassendi went at last to Paris, where he gained the friendship of Cardinal Richelieu, and shared the admiration of the learned world with the famous philosopher, Descartes.

Being appointed a professor of mathematics in the College Royal of Paris, he gave his attention to astronomical subjects, and greatly increased his reputation. After a life devoted to science, in which his achievements were wonderful, he died at Paris, October 14, 1655, aged sixty-three years. Distinguished by his vast learning, his admirable clearness of mind, the diversity of his acquirements, the calmness and dignity of his character, and the amiableness of his manners, Gassendi was alike one of the brightest ornaments of his age and of human nature.

PASCAL

Blaise Pascal "perhaps the most brilliant intellect that ever lighted on this lower world," was born at Clermont, in the province of Auvergne, on the 19th of June, 1623. He was descended from one of the best families in that province. As soon as he was able to speak, he discovered marks of extraordinary capacity. This he evinced, not only by the general pertinency and acuteness of his replies, but also by the questions which he asked concerning the nature of things, and his reasonings upon them, which were much superior to what is common at his age. His mother having died in 1626, his father, who was an excellent scholar and an able mathematician, and who lived in habits of intimacy with several persons of the greatest learning and science at that time in France, determined to take upon himself the whole charge of his son's education.

One of the instances in which young Pascal displayed his disposition to reason upon everything, is the following. He had been told that God rested from his labors on the seventh day, and hallowed it, and had commanded all mankind to suspend their labor and do no work on the Sabbath. When he was about seven years of age, he was seen, of a Sabbath morning, measuring some blades of grass. When asked what he was doing, he replied that he was going to see if the grass grew on Sunday, and if God ceased working on the Sabbath, as he had commanded mankind to do!

Before young Pascal had attained his twelfth year, two circumstances occurred, which deserve to be recorded, as they discovered the turn, and evinced the superiority, of his mind. Having remarked one day, at table, the sound produced by a person accidentally striking an earthenware plate with a knife, and that the vibrations were immediately stopped by putting his hand on the plate, he became anxious to investigate the cause of this phenomenon; he employed himself in making a number of experiments on sound, the results of which he committed to writing, so as to form a little treatise on the subject, which was found very correct and ingenious.

The other occurrence was his first acquisition, or, as it might not be improperly termed, his invention of geometry. His father, though very fond of mathematics, had studiously kept from his son all the means of becoming acquainted with this subject. This he did, partly in conformity to the maxim he had hitherto followed, of keeping his son superior to his task; and partly from an apprehension that a science so engaging, and at the same time so abstracted, and which, on that account, was peculiarly suited to the turn of his son's mind, would probably absorb too much of his attention, and stop the progress of his other studies, if he were at once initiated into it.

But the activity of an inquisitive and penetrating mind is not to be so easily restrained. As, from respect to his father's authority, however, the youth had so far regarded his prohibition as to pursue this study only in private, and at his hours of recreation, he went on for some time undiscovered. But one day, while he was employed in this manner, his father accidentally came into the room, unobserved by Pascal, who was wholly intent on the subject of his investigation. His father stood for some time unperceived, and observed, with the greatest astonishment, that his son was surrounded with geometrical figures, and was then actually employed in finding out the proportion of the angles formed by a triangle, one side of which is produced; which is the subject of the thirty-second proposition in the First Book of Euclid.

The father at length asked his son what he was doing. The latter, surprised and confused to find his father was there, told him he wanted to find out this and that, mentioning the different parts contained in that theorem. His father then asked how he came to inquire about that. He replied, that he had found out such a thing, naming some of the more simple problems; and thus, in reply to different questions, he showed that he had gone on his own investigations, totally unassisted, from the most simple definition in geometry, to Euclid's thirty-second proposition. This, it must be remembered, was when Pascal was but twelve years of age.

His subsequent progress perfectly accorded with this extraordinary display of talent. His father now gave him Euclid's Elements to peruse at his hours of recreation. He read them, and understood them, without any assistance. His progress was so rapid that he was soon admitted to the meetings of a society of which his father, Roberval, and some other celebrated mathematicians were members, and from which afterwards originated the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Paris.

During Pascal's residence with his father at Rouen, and while he was only in his nineteenth year, he invented his famous arithmetical machine, by which all numerical calculations, however complex, can be made by the mechanical operation of its different parts, without any arithmetical skill in the person who uses it. He had a patent for this invention in 1649. His studies, however, began to be interrupted when he reached his eighteenth year by some symptoms of ill health, which were thought to be the effect of intense application, and which never afterwards entirely quitted him; so that he was sometimes accustomed to say, that from the time he was eighteen, he had never passed a day without pain. But Pascal, though out of health, was still Pascal; ever active, ever inquiring, and satisfied only with that for which an adequate reason could be assigned. Having heard of the experiments instituted by Torricelli, to find out the cause of the rise of water in fountains and pumps, and of the mercury in the barometer, he was induced to repeat them, and to make others, to satisfy himself upon the subject.

In 1654, he invented his arithmetical triangle, for the solution of problems respecting the combinations of stakes, in unfinished games of hazard; and long after that, he wrote his Demonstrations of the Problems relating to the Cycloid; besides several pieces on other subjects in the higher branches of the mathematics, for which his genius was probably most fitted. Pascal, though not rich, was independent in his circumstances; and as his peculiar talents, his former habits, and the state of his health, all called for retirement, he adopted a secluded mode of life. From 1655, he associated only with a few friends of the same religious opinions with himself, and lived for the most part in privacy in the society of Port Royal.

At this period, the Catholics being divided into Jesuits and Jansenists, Pascal, being of the latter, published his famous Provincial Letters. These are so distinguished for their admirable wit, their keen argument, and their exquisite beauty of style, as to have even extorted praise from Voltaire and D'Alembert. He also wrote other pieces against the Jesuits, marked with great talent.

Pascal's health, however, continued to decline; and it is probable that his mind suffered in consequence. Though his life had been singularly blameless, still he seemed to be pained with a sense of inward sin. He was accustomed to wear an iron belt around his waist, in which were sharp points, upon which he would strike his elbows, or his arms, when any unholy passion crossed his mind. He continued to practise charity toward all mankind, and severe austerities to himself, until at last he was attacked with sickness, and on the 19th of August, 1662, he died. His last words were, "May God never forsake me!"

The latter part of his life was wholly spent in religious meditations, though he committed to paper such pious thoughts as occurred to him. These were published after his death, under the title of "Thoughts on Religion and other Subjects." They have been greatly admired for their depth, eloquence and Christian spirit.