Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/282

254 readily killed or captured. They sleep during the greater part of the day, searching for food in the clearer light of mornmo 1 and evening. They are remarkably heavy sleepers, and are readily captured by the inhabitants ascending the trees on which they roost, and noosing them before they awaken. Great numbers of condors are thus taken alive, and these, in certain districts, are employed in a variety of bull-fighting. They are exceedingly tenacious of life, and can exist, it is said, without food for over forty days. Although the favourite haunts of the condor are at the level of perpetual snow, yet it rises to a much greater height, Humboldt having observed it flying over Chimborazo at a height of over 23,000 feet. &quot; No other living creature,&quot; says a recent traveller in the Andes, &quot; can remove at pleasure so great a distance from the earth, and it seems to fly and respire as easily under the low barometric pressure of 13 inches as at the sea-shore. It can dart in an instant from the dome of Chimborazo to the sultry coast of the Pacific.&quot; In walking it trails its wings on the ground, and has an exceedingly awkward gait, but on wing the movements of the condor, as it wheels in majestic circles, are remarkably graceful. The birds flap their wings on rising from the ground, but after attaining a moderate elevation they seem to sail on the air, Darwin having watched them for half an hour without once observing a flap of their wings. There is a brown condor, &quot; condor pardo,&quot; which naturalists have generally regarded as the young of the &quot; condor negro.&quot; Recent investigations have, however, proved it to be a distinct species. It has been named Sarcorhamphus cequatorialis.  CONDORCET,, was born at Ribemont, in Picardy, on the 17th of September 1743. He descended from an ancient family who took their title from the castle of Condorcet, near Nion, in Dauphiny. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Rheims and at the College of Navarre in Paris, and early displayed the most varied mental activity. His first public distinctions were gained in the department of mathematics. At the age of sixteen, his performances in analysis elicited high commendation from D Alembert and Clairaut, and at the age of twenty- two, he composed a treatise on the integral calculus which obtained warm and general approbation from the most competent judges. With his many-sided intellect and richly-endowed emotional nature, however, it was impos sible for him to be a mere specialist, and least of all to be a mere mathematician. Philosophy and literature attracted him no less than geometry or the calculus, and social action, work for the public weal, was dearer to him than any form of intellectual exercise. In the year 1769 he was received as a member of the Academy of Sciences. His contributions to its memoirs are numerous, and many of them are on the most abstruse and difficult mathematical problems. Being of a very genial, susceptible, and enthusiastic disposition, he was the friend of almost all the distinguished men of his time, and a zealous propagator of the religious and political views then current among the literati of France. D Alembert, Turgot, and Voltaire, for whom he had great affection and veneration, and by whom he was highly respected and esteemed, contributed largely to the formation of his opinions. His Leltre d un laboureur de Picardie & M. Necker was written under the inspiration of Turgot, in defence of free internal trade in corn. His Lettre d u?i theologien, &c., was attributed to Voltaire, being impregnated throughout with the Voltairian anti-religious spirit. He was induced by D Ajembert to take an active part in the preparation of the Encyclopedic. His Eloyes ties Acadcmiciens de VAcademie Royale des Sciences morts depuis 1666 jusqu en 1699 (1773) gained him the merited reputation of being an eloquent and graceful writer. He was elected to the perpetual secretaryship of the Academy of Sciences in 1777, and was received into the French Academy in 1782. Three years afterwards he published a work on the application of the mathematical theory of probabilities to judicial decisions. This work, is admitted to have demonstrated that the calculus had a wider range than had previously been suspected, and to have per manently secured for its author a distinguished place in the history of the doctrine of probability. A second edition of it greatly enlarged and completely recast and revised appeared in 1804, ten years after his death, under the title of Elements du ccdcul des probabilites et son application aux jeux de hazard, a la loterie, et aux jugements des hommes, &c. He married, in 1786, a sister of Marshal Grouchy and of Madame Cabanis. His wife, said to have been one of the most beautiful women of her time, is known in literature by her excellent translation of Adam Smith s Theory of Moral Sentiments. In 1786 Condorcet published his Vie de Turgot, and in 1787 his Vie de Voltaire. Both works were widely and eagerly read, and are, perhaps, from a merely literary point of view, the best of Condorcet s writings. The political tempest which had been long gathering over France, now began to break and to carry everything before it. Condorcet was, of course, at once hurried along by it into the midst of the conflicts and confusion of the Revolu tion. He greeted with enthusiasm the advent of democracy, and laboured hard to secure and hasten its triumph. He was indefatigable in writing pamphlets, suggesting reforms, and planning constitutions. The first political functions which he exercised were those of a member of the muni cipality of Paris. He was next chosen by the Parisians to represent them in the Legislative Assembly, and then appointed by that body one of its secretaries. In this capacity he drew up most of its addresses, but seldom ascended the tribune, his pen being a more effective weapon than his tongue. He was the chief author of the address to the European powers when they threatened France with war. He devised likewise a bold and comprehensive scheme for the organization of public instruction, and not only brought it before the Assembly but published an exposition of it in five elaborate memoirs. In the Conven tion he sat for the department of the Aisne. At the trial of Louis XVI. he voted the king guilty of conspiring against liberty, and worthy of any punishment short of death, but recommended an appeal to the people. He took an active part in the framing of a constitution, which was laid before the Convention in February 1793, with an elaborate prefatory dissertation of Condorcet s composition, but another was introduced, adopted, and decreed. Con dorcet s severe criticism of this latter document, hir denunciation of the arrest of the Girondists, and his opposition to the violent conduct of the Mountain, led tc his being accused of conspiring against the Republic. He was condemned and declared to be hors la loi. Friends sought for him an asylum in the house of a Madame Vernet. Without even requesting to know his name, this truly heroic woman, as soon as she was assured that he was an honest and virtuous man, said, &quot; Let him come, and lose not a moment, for while we talk he may be seized.&quot; When the execution of the Girondists showed him that his presence exposed his protectress to a terrible danger, he resolved to seek a refuge elsewhere. &quot;lam outlawed,&quot; he said, &quot;and if I am discovered you will meet the same sad end as myself. I must not stay.&quot; Madame Vernet s reply deserves to be immortal, and should be given in her own words : &quot; La Convention, Monsieur, a le droit de mcttre hors la loi : elle n a pas le pouvoir de mettre hors de 1 humanite&quot; ; vous resterez.&quot; From that time she had his movements strictly watched lest he should attempt to quit her house. It was partly tu 