BLAISE PASCAL.

BLAISE PASCAL was born at Clermont, in Auvergne, in France, in the year 1623. His father was a judge in one of the district courts, and is reported to have been a man of considerable learning and an able mathematician. As Blaise was his only son, so great was his affection for him, that in the year 1631 he relinquished his official situation, and settled at Paris, in order that he might himself undertake the employment of being his tutor.

From his infancy, young Pascal gave evidence of a very extraordinary capacity. He was very inquisitive, and desirous of knowing the reasons of everything; and when good reasons were not given him, he would search for better; nor would he ever be satisfied but by such as appeared to him to be well founded. What we are told concerning his manner of learning mathematics, and his rapid progress in that science, is very astonishing. His father, perceiving in him an extraordinary inclination to reasoning, was afraid lest the knowledge of mathematics should prevent him from learning the languages. He therefore resolved to keep from him, as much as he could, all notions of geometry, locked up all the books that treated of it, and refrained even from speaking of it in his presence. Yet he could not refuse to give this general answer to the importunate curiosity of his son: 'Geometry is a science which teaches the way of making exact figures, and of finding out the proportions between them;' but at the same time forbade him to

speak or think of it any more. The slight idea which had been thus conveyed to him of the science, occupied young Blaise's thoughts, and led him in his hours of recreation to make figures on the chamber-floor with charcoal, the proportions of which he sought out, laying down definitions and axioms, and then going on to demonstrations. So far had he proceeded with his inquiries, that he had come to what was just the same with the thirty-second proposition of the First Book of Euclid, when he was one day surprised in the midst of his figures by his father, who asked him what he was doing. He replied, that he was searching for such a thing, which was just that proposition of Euclid. When asked afterwards how he came to think of this, he answered that it was because he had found out such another thing; and so, going backwards, he at length came to the definitions and axioms which he had formed to himself. Astonishing as it may appear that a boy of twelve years should be capable of thus working his way into the mysteries of a science without having seen any treatise upon the subject, or even knowing anything of the terms; and surprising as it is that he should have, in the course of his boyish researches, hit upon exactly the same combination of figures which had been adopted by an ancient philosopher for proving a particular mathematical truth; yet we are assured of the fact by Madame Perier, Pascal's sister, and several other writers, the credit of whose testimony is unquestionable.

From this time young Pascal had full liberty to indulge his genius in mathematical pursuits, and was furnished by his father with Euclid's Elements, of which he made himself master in an incredibly short time without any assistance. So wonderful was his proficiency in

mathematical science, that at the age of sixteen he wrote A Treatise on Conic Sections, which was approved of by the most learned men of the age. At nineteen, our young mathematician had contrived a machine capable of making a number of arithmetical calculations without any other assistance than the eye and the hand. This was esteemed a very wonderful thing, which would have done credit to any man of mature years. About this time the state of his health becoming impaired, owing, probably, to the intenseness of his studious application, he was obliged to suspend his labours for the space of four years. At the age of twenty-three, having seen Torricelli's experiments respecting a vacuum and the weight of the air, he directed his attention to those subjects, and made several new experiments, by which the weight of the atmosphere at different heights-a scientific fact of great moment-was fully demonstrated. The results of his investigations were immediately published, and communicated by him to all the learned bodies in Europe.

The reputation which Pascal thus acquired by his scientific labours occasioned his being frequently consulted by some of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the age, who applied for his assistance in the resolution of various difficult questions and problems. Among other subjects on which his ingenuity was employed, was the solution of a problem proposed by Father Mersenne, which had baffled the penetration of all who attempted it. This was, to determine the curve described in the air by the nave of a coach-wheel while the machine is in motion; which curve was then called a rouilette, but is now commonly known by the name of cycloid. As a spur to genius, M. Pascal offered a reward.

of forty pistoles to any one who should give a satisfactory answer to it. No person having succeeded, he published his own solution at Paris; but as he now began to grow disgusted with the sciences, he would not send it into the world under his own name, but prefixed to it that of A.' D'Etonville. This exertion of his genius was a triumph over all the old mathematicians of Europe, and it was made in circumstances which cannot but excite astonishment; for we are informed that he made the discovery, as it were, in spite of himself, and to his own great surprise, while passing sleepless nights in his bed, tormented by severe paroxysms of toothache.

When M. Pascal was in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and the highest expectations were entertained of the advantages to science from his future labours, he all at once renounced the study of mathematics and natural philosophy, as well as all human learning, and devoted himself wholly to a life of mortification and prayer. From this time he renounced all pleasure and all superfluity; and to this system he adhered in the illnesses to which he was frequently subject, being of a very infirm habit of body. He not only denied himself the most common gratifications, but he also took without reluctance, and even with pleasure, either as nourishment or as medicine, whatever was disagreeable to the senses; and he every day retrenched some part of his dress, food, or other things, which he considered as not absolutely necessary. He occasionally wore an iron girdle full of points next to his skin; and when any vain thought came into his mind, or he took pleasure in any circumstance, he gave himself some blows with his elbow, to increase the violence of the smart, and by that means put himself in mind of what he thought his duty.

He also broke off all voluntary intercourse with society, changed the place of his abode, and spoke to no one, not even to his own servants, whom he hardly ever admitted into his room. He made his own bed, fetched

his dinner from the kitchen, and carried back the plates and dishes in the evening; so that he employed his servants only to cook for him, to go on a few unavoidable errands, and to do such things for him as he was incapable of performing himself. Nothing was to be seen in his chamber but two or three chairs, a table, a bed, and a few books. It had no kind of ornament whatever; he had neither a carpet on the floor nor curtains to his bed. These circumstances, however, did not prevent him from occasionally receiving visits; and when his friends appeared surprised to see him thus without furniture, he replied, that he had what was necessary, and that anything more would be a superfluity unworthy of a wise man. During the latter years of his life, his principal relaxation from the rigorous system which he prescribed to himself consisted in visits which he paid to the churches where some relics were exposed or some solemnity observed; and for that purpose he had a spiritual almanac, which informed him of the places where particular services were performed.

Prostrated as Pascal's physical powers were by these religious exercises, he nevertheless shewed that intellect was not dead within him. He entered keenly into a quarrel between Jansenists and Jesuits, taking the part of the former. The work which Pascal wrote on this occasion was entitled Provincial Letters; and both from its serious tone of reasoning and its happy turns of wit, as well as from the humour and taste of the age, it obtained very extensive celebrity. This