(to Memoirs of J. JjenionVi. 



funtfrrt public thefes on fame very difficult points of law, 



fcnd to receive his licence. . 



In 1780 he made a tour through feveral cantons of 

 Swifferland in company with a few friends. The account 

 of this fliort excursion, written in a plain manner, and with- 

 out the name of the author, may be found in the third 

 volume of the collection of travels publifhcd at Berlin by 

 M, John Bernoulli. 



The ftudy of the law, and the application he gave to that 

 branch of knowledge, was not able to extinguifh his 

 «reometric fpirit hereditary in the family. The leflbns 

 which had been given him by his father in his youth, and 

 which were afterwards continued by his uncle, the cele- 

 brated Daniel Bernoulli, had increaied his innate and irre- 

 iiftible propensity to the mathematical fciences. His 

 - rapid progrefs infpired him with the moft nattering hopes, 

 and induced the heads of the univerfity to entruft him, in 

 1780, with the functions of his uncle, whofe age and in- 

 firmities had rendered him incapable, for fome time, of con-' 

 tinning his lectures on experimental philofophy. Mr. 

 Bernoulli difcharged thefe functions, till the death of his 

 uncle, to the fatisfa&ion of his auditors and the univerfity; 

 but he had not the pleafure of fucceeding to the vacant 

 chair, though his name was inferted in the lift of candidates, 

 becaufe academic places at Bade arc determined by lot, as 

 well as all the other offices of the republic 5 and, on this 

 occafion, the lot was unfavourable to him, a caprice of for- 

 tune which he had experienced in 1780, when be flood can- 

 didate for the chair of eloquence, at that time vacant. It 

 was on this laft occafion that he publifhed his Thefes. on the 

 Sublime. This double difappointment, joined to a ftrong 

 defire of feeinc the world, fo natural and fo powerful in 

 young men, made him foon after form a refolution, agree- 

 able to his prevailing tafte for travelling, but which feemed 

 likely, for a little time, to lead him alide from the literary 

 career he had entered with fo much applaufe ; and he ac- 



6 cepted 



