2 THE WORK OF SAD1 CAENOT. 



well, and Clausius were such in mathematical 

 physics. Among engineers, we have the exam- 

 ples of Watt as inventor and philosopher, Eankine 

 as his mathematical complement, developing the 

 theory of that art of which Watt illustrated the 

 practical side ; we have Hirn as engineer- experi- 

 mentalist, and philosopher, as well ; Corliss as in- 

 ventor and constructor ; and a dozen creators of 

 the machinery of the textile manufactures, in 

 which, in the adjustment of cam-work, the high- 

 est genius of the mechanic appears. 



But Carnot exhibited that most marked charac- 

 teristic of real genius, the power of applying such 

 qualities as I have just enumerated to great pur- 

 poses and with great result while still a youth. 

 Genius is not dependent, as is talent, upon the 

 ripening and the growth of years for its pres- 

 cience ; it is ready at the earliest maturity, and 

 sometimes earlier, to exhibit its marvellous works ; 

 as, for example, note Hamilton the mathema- 

 tician and Mill the logician ; the one becoming 

 master of a dozen languages when hardly more 

 than as many years of age, reading Newton's Prin- 

 cipia at sixteen and conceiving that wonderful 

 system, quaternions, at eighteen ; the other com- 

 petent to begin the study of Greek at three, learn- 

 ing Latin at seven and reading Plato before he 



