44 Biographical Memoir of Count Rumford. 



were no longer such as suited, precisely because the success of their 

 adoption had already been so rapid. 



He threfore only returned to Munich for a short time, during the 

 peace of Amiens ; and yet even in this short time, he performed a 

 true and great service to science, in contributing, by his advice, to 

 the reorganization of the Bavarian Academy, on a plan which, with 

 utility, in every respect, combined a truly royal magnificence. 



The period at length arrived when a final retreat had become ne- 

 cessary. It was no mean honor for France, that a man who had en- 

 joyed the consideration of the most civilized countries of the two 

 worlds, preferred it for his last residence. He preferred France, 

 because he quickly perceived it to be the country where merited 

 reputation most surely gains a true dignity, independent of the transi- 

 tory favor of courts, and of all the chances of fortune. 



In fact, we have seen him among us for ten 3'ears, honored by 

 Frenchmen and foreigners, esteemed by the friends of science, par- 

 ticipating in their labors, aiding with his advice even the meanest arti- 

 zans, nobly gratifying the public with a constant succession of use- 

 ful inventions. 



Nothing would have been wanting to his happiness, had the ameni- 

 ty of his behavior equalled his ardor for public utility. But it must 

 be acknowledged, that he manifested, in his conversation and in his 

 whole conduct, a feeling which must appear very extraordinary in a 

 man so uniformly well treated by others, and who had himself done 

 so much good. It was without loving or esteeming his fellow crea- 

 tures, that he had done them all these services. Apparently the vile 

 passions which he had observed in the wretches committed to his 

 care, or those other passions, not less vile, which his good fortune 

 had excited among his rivals, had soui'ed him against human nature. 

 Nor did he think that the care of their own welfare ought to be con- 

 fided to men in common. That desire which seems to them so nat- 

 ural, of examining how they are ruled, was in his eyes but a factitious 

 product of false knowledge. He had nearly the same ideas of slave- 

 ry as a planter, and he considered the Chinese government as the 

 nearest to perfection ; because, in delivering up the people to the ab- 

 solute power of men of knowledge alone, and in raising each of these 

 in the hierarchy, according to the degree of his knowledge, it made in 

 some measure so many millions of hands the passive organs of the 

 will of a few good heads ; — a doctrine which we mention without in 

 any degree pretending to justify it, and which we know to be little 

 adapted to the ideas of European nations. 



