GASSENDI. 
perfectly consistent with the purest pre- 
cepts of virtue. In the year 1628, Gas- 
sendi, for the sake of extending his acquain- 
tance with the learned, visited Holland, 
where his philosophical and literary merit 
soon procured him many admirers and 
friends. While he was in that country he 
wrote an elegant and judicious apology for 
his friend, the learned Mersenne, in reply 
to the censures of Robert Fludd, on the 
subject of the Mosaic philosophy. After 
his return to France, he continued his phi- 
losophical, and particularly his astronomical 
studies, pursuing with great care, a series 
of celestial observations, in order to com- 
plete his system of the heavens. Being 
called by a law-suit to Paris, he there 
formed an acquaintance with the men most 
distinguished for. science and learning in 
that capital, and by his agreeable manners, 
as well as reputation, secured the esteem of 
persons of high rank and quality, and in 
particular of Cardinal Richelieu, and of his 
brother the cardinal of Lyons. Owing to 
the application and interest of the latter, 
in the year 1645, Gassendi was appointed 
regius-professor of the mathematics at Paris. 
This institution being chiefly intended for 
astronomy, our author read lectures on that 
science to crowded auditories, by which he 
acquired great popularity, and rose to high 
expectations. But the fatigues of that ap- 
pointment were more than his strength, al- 
ready reduced by too intense application, 
was able to bear ; and having caught a cold, 
which brought an inflammation upon his 
lungs, he was obliged, in the year 1647, to 
qtiit Paris, and to return to Digne for the 
benefit of his native air. After having his 
health in some measure re-established by 
the intermission of his studies, in the year 
1653, he retured again to Paris, where he 
published the lives of Tycho Brahe, Coper- 
nicus, Purbach, and Regiomontanus; and 
then resumed, with as much intenseness as 
ever, his astronomical labours. His feeble 
state of health, however, was now unequal 
to such exertions, which brought on a re- 
turn of his disorder : under which, with the 
aid of too copious and numerous bleedings, 
he sunk in 1655, when in the sixty-third 
year of his age. A little before he expired, 
he desired his secretary to lay his hand 
upon the region of his heart ; which when 
he had done, and remarked on the feeble 
state of its pulsation, Gassendi said to him, 
“ You see how frail is the life of man!” 
which were the last words he uttered. He 
is ranked by Barrow among the most emi- 
nent mathematicians of the age, and men- 
tioned with Galileo, Gilbert, and Des 
Cartes. 
His commentary upon the tenth book of 
Diogenes Laertius, affords sufficient proof 
of his profound erudition, and his deep skill 
in the languages. 
We have already mentioned his opposi- 
tion to the philosophy of Des Cartes, by 
which he divided with that great man the 
philosophers of his time, almost all of whom 
were, either Cartesians or Gassendists. At 
one time a coolness took place between 
those two eminent characters, in conse- 
quence of irritating expressions which had 
escaped from both their pens, during the 
course of their philosophic warfare. The 
Abbe d’Estrees, afterwards Cardinal, with 
the design of bringing about a reconcilia- 
tion between them, invited them both to 
dinner, in company with many of their com- 
mon friends, among whom were father Mer- 
senne, Roberval, the Abbe de Marolles, 
&c. At the time fixed, all the expected 
guests made their appearance, excepting 
Gassendi, who, during the preceding night, 
had been attacked by a severe complaint, 
which prevented him from venturing abroad. 
As the cause of his absence was explained 
after dinner, the Abbe d’Estrees, carried 
his whole company along with him to Gas- 
sendis apartments, where they had the 
pleasure of hearing the two philosophers 
make mutual acknowledgments of their im- 
proper warmth and irritability, and gene- 
rously declaring, that whatever difference 
in opinion might afterwards subsist between 
them, it should produce no unfavourable 
effect upon their friendship. 
Gassendi was the first person who ob- 
served the transit of Mercury over the sun. 
Kepler had predicted that it would take 
place on the 7th of November, 1631. Gas- 
sendi, who was then at Paris, made due 
preparations to observe it, and after having 
for some time mistaken the appearance of 
that planet for a solar spot, became at 
length sensible of his error by the rapidity 
of its movement ; and took care to calcu- 
late the time of its egress from the sun’s 
disk, as well as its distance from the sun’s 
vertical point. 
From Gassendi’s letters, it appears, that 
he was often consulted by the most cele- 
brated astronomers of his time, as Kepler, 
Longomontauus, Snell, Hevelius, Galileo, 
Kircher, Bulliald, and others; and his la- 
bours certainly entitle him to a high rank 
among the founders of the reformed philo- 
