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Pierre Prevost was born in 1751, and was originally destined 

 to follow the profession of his father, who was one of the pastors of 

 Geneva : at the age of twenty, however, he abandoned the study of 

 theology for that of law, the steady pursuit of which, in time, gave 

 way to his ardent passion for literature and philosophy : at the age 

 of twenty-two, he became private tutor in a Dutch family, and after- 

 wards accepted a similar situation in the family of M. Delessert, 

 first at Lyons, and afterwards at Paris. It was in this latter city 

 that he commenced the publication of his translation of Euripides, 

 beginning with the tragedy of Orestes ; — a work which made him 

 advantageously known to some of the leading men in that great me- 

 tropolis of literature, and led to his appointment, in 1780, to the 

 professorship of philosophy in the college of Nobles, and also to a 

 place in the Academy of Berlin, on the invitation of Frederick 

 the Great. Being thus established in a position where the cultiva- 

 tion of literature and philosophy became as much a professional 

 duty as the natural accomplishment of his own wishes and tastes, 

 he commenced a life of more than ordinary literary activity and 

 productiveness. In the course of the four years which he passed at 

 Berlin, he published Observations sur les methodes employees pour 

 enseigner la morale ; sur la tJieorie des gains fortuits ; sur le mouve- 

 ment progressif du centre de gravite de tout le systeme solaire ; sur 

 Vorigine des vitesses projectiles ; sur V economic des anciens gouverne- 

 ments ; sur Vetat des finances d Angleterre ; and he also completed 

 the three first volumes of his translation of Euripides. There 

 were, in fact, few departments of literature or philosophy which 

 were not comprehended in the extensive range of his studies and 

 publications. 



In the year 1784, he returned to Geneva to attend the death-bed 

 of his father, when he was induced to accept the chair of belles 

 lettres in the University, — an appointment, which he found on trial 

 little suited to his taste, and which he shortly afterwards resigned. 

 For some years after this period, he was compelled more by circum- 

 stances than by inclination to partake largely in those political dis- 

 cussions, which, for some years, agitated his native city, and which 

 afterwards, resumed upon a wider theatre, shook to its centre the 

 whole framework of European society; but he gradually withdrew 

 himself from political life on his appointment to the chair of na- 

 tural philosophy in 1792, and devoted himself from thenceforth, 

 with renewed activity and ardour, to pursuits which were most con- 

 genial to his tastes. 



In 1790 M. Prevost published his Memoire sur Vequilihre dufeu, 

 and in the following year his Recherches sur la chaleur : these im- 

 portant memoirs were followed by many others on the same subject 

 in various scientific journals ; and the general results of all his re- 

 searches and discoveries were exhibited, in a systematic form, in 

 his well-known work Sur le calorique rayonnant, which was pub- 

 lished in 1809, and in which he fully developed his Theory of Ex- 

 changes, and was enabled to give a consistent explanation of the 

 principal facts which were at that time known respecting the nature 

 and propagation of heat. 



