MEMOIR OF DAUBENTON. 217 



Another disposition of his mind, and which has fur- 

 ther contributed to these imputations of pusillanimity 

 or egotism which have been made against him even in 

 printed works, which however does not justify them 

 the more, was his entire obedience to the law, not as 

 being just, but simply as the law. This submission to 

 human laws was absolutely of the same description as 

 that which he had for the laws of nature : it no more 

 permitted him to murmur against those which deprived 

 him of fortune, or the reasonable use of his liberty, than 

 against those which disfigured his limbs with gout. 

 Some one has said of him, that he looked upon the 

 swellings of his fingers with the same sang-froid as he 

 would have done the knots on a tree ; and this was 

 literally true. It was equally true of the indifference 

 with which he would have given up his situation and 

 fortune, and gone into distant exile, had tyrants re- 

 quired it of him. 



Besides, even although the maintenance of his tran- 

 quillity may have been the motive of some of his actions, 

 does not the use which he made of that tranquillity 

 absolve him from blame ? And the man who extracted 

 so many secrets from Nature, and laid the foundations 

 of a science almost new ; who has given to his country 

 an entire branch of industry ; who has reared one of 

 the most important monuments in science, and formed 

 so many enlightened pupils, many of whom now occupy 

 the first places among the philosophers of the day, Does 

 such a man now require to be justified for having 



