'246 Biographical Account of [Apkil, 



but it does not appear that he was very well adapted for the 

 office, and he quitted the employment, without either giving or 

 receiving much satisfaction. 



When he had spent about two years in Paris, although he had 

 not nearly completed his medical education, his father insisted 

 upon his leaving the university and commencing his professional 

 career. With his usual pertinacity and wrong-headedness, and 

 totally disregarding the feelings of his son, he announced his 

 arrival in Geneva by a public advertisement in the papers ; this 

 roused the animosity, or excited the jealousy of the elder prac- 

 titioners, identifying, probably, the characters of the father and 

 the son, and caused them to enforce a dormant regulation, by 

 which persons who were not freemen of the city were not per- 

 mitted to practise medicine within its walls. This interdiction, 

 which was absolute and without appeal, blasted all the hopes 

 and projects of the father, and reduced him to a state of apathy 

 and indifference, which caused him at once to resign all autho- 

 rity over his son, and even, apparently, to lose all interest about 

 him. He never more interfered with his plans, but left him to 

 extricate himself, as well as he could, out of the difficulties in 

 which he had involved him. 



The health and spirits of the younger Le Sage were much 

 affected by the uncertainty and embarrassment into which he 

 was thus thrown : he formed many projects, which were aban- 

 doned almost as quickly as they were formed ; but at length he 

 determined to remain at Geneva, and embraced the occupation 

 of his father. It is a little remarkable, that although he had 

 originally entered upon the study of medicine so contrary to his 

 inclination, and had even pursued it, apparently, with so little 

 relish ; yet now that an opportunity offered in which he might 

 have indulged the natural bent of his inclination, he made consi- 

 derable exertions to accomplish the object. These, however, 

 failed ; and when no other means offered by which he could be 

 enabled to pursue the profession for which he had been destined, 

 in the 26th year of his age he entered with his accustomed 

 ardour and assiduity upon his new employment, and remained 

 devoted to it for the remainder of his life. 



The narrative part of this article may be considered as termi- 

 nating with the establishment of Le Sage at Geneva as a pre- 

 ceptor ; for the remaining events which befel him were entirely 

 of a literary nature, consisting of the intercourse, or connexion, 

 which he had with men of science, and the various philosophical 

 topics to which he, from time to time, directed his attention. 

 His constitution was naturally not vigorous ; and his literary 

 habits, especially the custom in which he indulged, from an 

 early period, of meditating during the hours of sleep, rendered 

 him liable to many serious infirmities. His temperance and 

 regularity tended, however, to counteract these unfavourable 

 circumstances, so that his life was protracted until his 80th 



