89 



CARPENTER, DR. LANT. 



CARPENTER, WILLIAM BENJAMIN, M.D. 



90 



warfare. He also explains the system of defence which goes by his 

 name, namely, that of covering the guns from the enemy, and using 

 them for vertical firing only, until the attack upon the body of the 

 place begins. 



The mathematical works of Carnot are remarkable for the elegance 

 of his geometry and the clearness of his mode of expression. In his 

 'Reflexions sur la Me'taphysique du Calcul Infinitesimal,' he enters upon 

 the consideration of the system of Leibnitz; and the main point of 

 his theory is, that there is a compensation between the infinitesimals 

 of inferior orders which are rejected on both sides of an equation. In 

 his ' Gdome'trie de Position' (Paris, 1803), his object is to explain 

 the meaning of the negative sign in geometry, but at the same time 

 he gives a large number of new and very general theorems. Here he 

 is the inventor of that class of general theorems which have since been 

 pushed to a great extent by Messrs. Poncelet, Dandelin, Quetelet, 

 Chasles, &c. There is also his memoir upon the relation of five points 

 taken in space, followed by his theory of transversals, Paris, 1806. 

 The essay on machines in general was enlarged and republished in 

 1803, under the title 'Principes fundamentally d'Equilibre et du 

 Mouvement.' He published also some political tracts, and in particu- 

 lar, a justification of his public conduct in 1815. 



The fullest and best account of Carnot yet published is Arago's 

 ' Notice Biographique,' read before the Acade'mie des Sciences, August 

 21, 1837, and published in the first volume of his (Euvres, pp. 511- 

 633 ; but it will be well to bear in mind that although M. Arago says 

 " it is a biography, not a panegyric," it u in fact an cToge, and as such 

 it must be read. 



CARPENTER, DR. LANT, was born September 2, 1780, at Kidder- 

 minster, and was descended both on the father's and mother's side 

 from old non-conformist families in that town. In consequence of his 

 father's failure in business, he was at an early age adopted by a Mr. 

 Pearsall, a relation of his mother, a man of piety and benevolence. 

 Being designed for the ministry, he was sent in 1797 to the dissenters' 

 academy at Northampton. But about a year after Lant Carpenter 

 entered it, the establishment was for a time broken up, the trustees 

 being dissatisfied with its condition, and especially with the real or 

 supposed heterodoxy of the students. Lant Carpenter's friends were 

 probably for the most part Arians : his own views appear to have 

 been still more remote from the standard of reputed orthodoxy. The 

 students had however their exhibitions continued to them for the full 

 term, and Lant Carpenter finished his academical career at Glasgow. 



On leaving college he was engaged for a time as assistant in the 

 school of the late Rev. J. Corrie at Birmingham, and was afterwards 

 one of the librarians of the Athenaeum at Liverpool, where he 

 became acquainted with Mr. lioscoe, Dr. Currie, and other literary 

 men. While here, he received overtures from several congregations 

 to become their minister, and was offered a tutorship in Manchester 

 College, York, the principal academical institution of the Unitarians. 

 Ho declined these, but accepted an invitation to succeed the Rev. T. 

 Keurick as one of the ministers of the Unitarian congregation at 

 Exeter, to which place he removed in 1805. About this time he 

 married. He remained at Exeter twelve years, fulfilling the duties of 

 his office with exemplary diligence, and especially devoting himself to 

 the instruction of the young people of the congregation. He had also 

 a small boarding-school. In 1806 he applied for the degree of M.A. 

 to the university of Glasgow, and tho senate sent him instead the 

 degree of LL.D. In the course of the same year he proposed the 

 establishment of a public library at Exeter, took the lead in carrying 

 the proposal into effect, and managed the institution for the first year. 

 He also aided in the establishment of a Lancasterian school and of a 

 savings bank in the town, and incited his congregation to establish a 

 Sunday-school. He occasionally took part in public affairs when 

 questions of religious liberty were concerned. 



In 1817 he removed to Bristol, as one of the ministers of the Unita- 

 rian congregation there. Here his labours in the discharge of his 

 ministerial duties were continued; and his own school was much 

 enlarged. He also interested himself in objects of general utility, and 

 took an active part in organising the Bristol Literary and Philosophical 

 Institution. His health failing, he iu 1826 resigned his pastorship at 

 Bristol and spent some time in travelling in England and on the 

 continent ; by which his health and spirits were gradually restored. 

 At the beginning of 1829 he resumed, by invitation, his ministry at 

 Bristol ; but his Echool, which had been for a time carried on for him, 

 was given up. In 1839 his health, which had been for some time 

 declining, once more gave way, and in June a painful depression of 

 health and spirits came on. He was again recommended to travel, and 

 while going iu a steam-boat from Naples to Leghorn, fell overboard 

 unperceived and was drowned, in the night of the 6th of April 1840. 

 His body was afterwards found on the coast of the Papal territory near 

 Porto d'Anzo, the ancient Antium, and was interred on the sea-shore. 



Dr. Carpenter was an industrious and useful writer. His publica- 

 tions, including those which were posthumous, amounted to forty-four. 

 Many of these were polemical or other sermons or pamphlets which 

 do not require notice here. The following are his more important 

 works : ' An Introduction to the Geography of the New Testament,' 

 12mo, 1805: this work has gone through several editions. ' Unita- 

 rianism the Doctrine of the Gospel,' 12mo, 1809. ' An Examination 

 of the Charges made against Unitarianism, &c. by Dr. Magee, in his 



BIOO. DIV. VOL. it. 



Discourses on Atonement,' &e., Svo, 1820. Principles of Education 

 Intellectual, Moral, and Physical,' Svo, 1820 : this work is a reprint of 

 articles which he had contributed to Rees's 'Cyclopaedia.' 'A Harmony 

 or Synoptical Arrangement of the Gospels,' Svo, 1835, of which a 

 second edition, under the title of 'An Apostolical Harmony of tho 

 Gospels,' was published iu 1S38. It is probably on this valuable work 

 that Dr. Carpenter's reputation as a divine and an author will ulti- 

 mately rest. ' Sermons on Practical Subjects,' Svo, 1840 : this 

 posthumous volume was edited by his son, Dr. W. B. Carpenter, the 

 subject of the following article. An interesting memoir of Dr. Carpen- 

 ter, by his second son, the Rev. Russell Lant Carpenter of Bridgewater, 

 forms a companion volume to the Sermons, and has furnished the 

 materials of the present article. ' Lectures on the Scripture Doctrine 

 of Atonement," 12mo, 1843; also posthumous, edited by his third son, 

 the Rev. P. P. Carpenter of Stand near Manchester. Besides his 

 separate publications he contributed the chapters on Grammar, 

 Mental and Moral Philosophy, and Ancient Geography, to a work 

 called 'Systematic Education,' 2 vols. Svo, 1815; the articles on 

 Grammar, and Mental and Moral Philosophy, to Nicholson's ' Cyclo- 

 paedia;' and several papers to Aikin's 'Annual Review,' and to Rees's 

 ' Cyclopaedia." He was also a frequent contributor to the periodicals 

 of his own religious denomination. 



CARPENTER, WILLIAM BENJAMIN, M.D., one of the most 

 distinguished physiologists arid writers on the science of physiology of 

 the present day. He is the sou of the late Dr. Lant Carpenter 

 noticed above. On leaving school he commenced a course of study 

 preparatory to entering upon the career of a civil engineer. His tastes 

 however led him ultimately to enter the medical profession, and ho 

 joined the medical classes of University College about 1S33, where as a 

 student he was distinguished for his accurate knowledge, and especially 

 for the elegance of his written compositions. He passed his examination 

 at the Royal College of Surgeons and Apothecaries Society in 1835. He 

 subsequently pursued his studies iu the University of Edinburgh, where 

 his capacity for original thought and dealing with the most profound 

 physiological discussions became apparent. One of his earliest papers 

 on the subject of physiology was published in the 'Edinburgh Medical 

 and Surgical Journal ' (No. 132), with the title ' On the Voluntary and 

 Instinctive Actions of Living Beings.' In this paper may be dis- 

 covered the germs of those views which he has since so fully 

 developed in his various works on physiology. He graduated at Edin- 

 burgh in the year 1S39, but not until he had published the three 

 following papers: 1. 'On the Unity of Function iu Organised Beings' 

 (' Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal ') ; 2. ' On the Differences of 

 the Laws regulating Vital and Physical Phenomena' (Ibid.) ; 3. ' Dis- 

 sertation on the Physiological Inferences to be deduced from the 

 Structure of the Nervous System in the Invertebrate Class of Ani- 

 mals.' This last paper was published in Edinburgh in 1838, and 

 translated in Miiller's 'Archiv.' for 1840. In these papers he laid the 

 foundations of those principles which he afterwards developed more 

 fully in an independent work entitled 'Principles of General and 

 Comparative Physiology, intended as an Introduction to the study of 

 Human Physiology, and as a guide to the philosophical pursuit of 

 Natural History,' Svo, London, 1S39. This work was one of the first 

 in our language to give a general view of the science of life, and to 

 point out the relation of physical laws to vital phenomena. That 

 there should be errors in detail could only be expected. It was a 

 most remarkable production for so young a man, and at once fixed on 

 him the attention of physiologists as one of the most promising culti- 

 vators of their science. A second edition appeared in 1841. 



He now settled in Bristol with the view of practising his profession, 

 and was appointed lecturer on medical jurisprudence in the medical 

 school of that city. The practice of his profession however was less 

 in accordance with his tastes than the study of the literature of the 

 science by which alone it can be advanced. With an almost unri- 

 valled facility of acquiring and communicating knowledge, it is not to 

 be wondered at that he found it more agreeable to supply the neces- 

 sities of .1 family by writing books on science than by submitting to 

 the drudgery demanded of those who would succeed in medical 

 practice. In 1843 and subsequent years he wrote the ' Popular 

 Cyclopaedia of Science,' embracing the subjects of mechanics, vege- 

 table physiology and botany, animal physiology, and zoology. These 

 works were professedly only compilations, but they contain many of 

 the author's original views, and are written in an agreeable style. 



Soon after the publication of these volumes, Dr. Carpenter employed 

 himself in the production of a volume on the ' Principles of Human 

 Physiology,' which was published iu London in 1846. This work, 

 which perhaps at first hardly did justice to the author's reputation, 

 reached a fourth edition in 1853 ; of this edition, it may be truly said 

 to be altogether the best work on the subject extant. If the author 

 has not repeated the experiments of other observers, he has the great 

 merit of appreciating correctly the labours of others ; and in those. 

 departments of physiology which are beyond the region of experi- 

 ment, and demand the more subtle analysis of a logical mind, such as 

 the functions of the nervous system, the science of physiology has no 

 more accomplished exponent. 



Whilst the ' Human Physiology * was passing through its several 

 editions, the ' Principles of Comparative and General Physiology ' 

 reached a third edition, thus forming a companion volume. It has 



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