84 Some Account of the Life and Writings of Condor cet. 



All the eloges which he composed have, as far as the subject' 

 would allow, two kinds of merit very reniarkr^ble : in the first 

 place we find perfect analyses of the labours of the personage 

 praised, prepared by summaries in which the objects and the 

 progress of the sciences are rendered of easy attainment without 

 any want of precision. Afterwards we find criticisms stamped 

 with the authority of reason, at least in the eves of those who 

 knew how to defend themselves from the exaggerations of enthu- 

 siasm as well as from the spirit of detraction ; and he loses no 

 opportunity of raising his voice with ardour, and yet with de- 

 cency, against the abuses and prejudices vvhich attend the sub- 

 ject undar discussion. In praising Haller, Linnaeus, Daniel 

 Bernoulli, ^'aucanson, Euler, D'Alembeit, Bergman, Buffon,. 

 and Franklin, it was necessary that he should review ail tl.e 

 sciences, and give an account of the greatest discoveries of the 

 age : he had also occasion to speak of the honorary academi- 

 cians, members chosen from among the great men in place. He 

 knew how to mingle with their Ijloge judicious observations on 

 their operations, and on the perfectibility of the social edifice : 

 but he loved truth too much to consent to palliate the vices of 

 an oppressive ministerj and he preserved tlie most profound si- 

 lence with respect to Vrillicre, the odious dispenser of the lettres 

 de cachet under the reign of Louis XV. As Secretary to the 

 French Academy, D'Alembert has also made eloges which have 

 merited and obtained reputation : but those of Condorcet are 

 stronger in point of facts, while the style is graver and better 

 supported ; and in the eloge of his predecessor, he has traced 

 the duties wliich he imposed upon himself, and the course which 

 he proposed to hold. 



His mind, constantly occupied with the great interests of 

 truth and society, could no longer descend to the fatiguing and 

 barren calculations inseparable from the researches *into pure 

 mathematics. In correspondence with Voltaire, and intimately 

 connected with D'Alembert, he necessarily took the greater part 

 in philosophical discussions, the greater were his means of obtain- 

 ing success, by adding to the solidity of a judgement matured 

 in the most abstract subjects, a great facility of expressing his 

 ideas : thus we find him, in the " Letter from a Tlieologian to 

 the Author of the Three Centuries," repelling in a happy strain 

 of irony the ridiculous assertions of Sabathier de Castres. 



Tired of hearing the " Thoughts of Pascal" abused without 

 restriction, Voltaire had already hazarded upon this book, a 

 monument at once of the weakness and strength of the human 

 mind, some very sagacious and well formed reflections : never- 

 theless, but little more was as yet known as to the object of 



those 



