122 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by the leg, threw him to the earth, tumbled him into the gutter and 

 went on his way amid the shouts of the crowd, who were amazed at 

 this exhibition of dexterity and strength. 



The hopes of the Democracy, however, appeared to be short-lived, 

 and Carnot returning to his scientific studies applied to them his pent- 

 up political ardor. He undertook important researches upon the phys- 

 ical properties of gases and vapors, especially upon their elastic ten- 

 sions. Unfortunately his tables were not completed. His excessive 

 application was followed by an attack of scarlet fever in June, 1832, and 

 while convalescing from this attack he was seized on the twenty-fourth 

 of August with the epidemic of cholera and died in a few hours. As 

 if by a sinister presentiment he had been watching the advance of the 

 epidemic very closely, when without previous warning he was carried 

 away upon its tide in the very prime of life, being but thirty-six years 

 of age. 



Although the one work that he published is sufficient to keep his 

 name from being forgotten among scientists, yet it is from portions 

 of his note-book that we learn of the activity of his spirit, the variety 

 of his knowledge, his love for humanity and his clear ideas of justice 

 and liberty. In these notes we find rules of practical conduct; observa- 

 tions later embodied in his memoir; some thought that happened 

 especially to strike him, sad or gay; sometimes also, though seldom, an 

 outburst of ill feeling against men and society; thoughts on general 

 political economy or on taxation in particular; and on morals and 

 religion. Some of the ideas contained in these notes remind one not 

 a little of 'Poor Eichard's Almanac,' and are so quaintly set that it 

 will doubtless be of interest to quote a few. 



The promptness with which a resolution comes to one generally accords 

 with the justice of it. 



Never feign a character that you do not possess, and never assume a 

 personality that you will not be able to sustain. 



Speak little of that which you know; not at all of that which you do not 

 know. Why not the more often say : ' I do not know ' 1 



Hope is the greatest of blessings; it is necessary, therefore, in order to be 

 happy, to sacrifice the present to the future. 



I do not know why one always confounds the two expressions : ' Good 

 sense ' and ' common sense.' Nothing is less common than good sense. 



People speak of the laws of war, as if war were not the destruction of 

 all law. 



Men attribute to chance that of which they do not know the cause. If 

 they come to divine the cause, the chance disappears. To say that a thing 

 happens by chance is to say that we have not been able to foresee it. What 

 is chance for an ignorant man, may not be chance for a man more instructed. 



Carnot possessed a repugnance toward publicity, so that, except in 

 conversation with a small number of intimate friends, those among 



