Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/405

Rh and lastly, that the atmosphere itself, far from being, as the ancients had supposed, a simple homogeneous mass, contained this substance as its active principle, mingled with four times as much of another different body.

Here, before explaining the consequences of this great discovery, and showing the position in which it stands, I may be permitted to spend a moment in relating the melancholy but interesting history of its author. It is a lesson which ought not to be lost. Born the son of a tradesman, who died while he was young, and left him very poor, his early manhood was spent in the useful but tedious duties of a village school-master. His attention being turned to theology, he subsequently became the pastor of a Presbyterian church. We must not impute it to mental weakness, but rather to a pursuit of the truth, that in succession he passed through many phases of religious belief, and four different sects, the Presbyterian, Arminian, Arian, and Unitarian, received him as a votary. This is not the occasion nor the place to explain the causes that led him in this course. It is only for us to judge of so great a man with charity. But, imbued as he was with a deep religious sentiment, and feeling that even the most exalted objects of this life are not to be compared with the importance of another world, he regarded his philosophical pursuits as a very secondary affair, and gave much of his time and talent to controversial theology. He seems to have come to the conclusion that it was incumbent on him to make a religious war. As his biographer says, "Atheists, Deists, Jews, Arians, Quakers, Methodists, Calvinists, Catholics, Episcopalians, had alike to combat him." In more than a hundred volumes which he printed, each of these found an adversary of such force and vigor (and it was impossible with such a man that it could be otherwise), that their ablest theological writers were overmatched. By the established Church of England he came to be regarded with such feelings, that instances occurred in which those who had successfully answered him were rewarded with the highest dignities; a circumstance which gave origin to his remark that he appointed the Bishops of England.

But this was not all. The first French Revolution broke out, and, his ardent mind imbibing with enthusiasm the seductive doctrines of the times, he added to his religious disputes those of a political partisan. As the different sects had in succession stood in fear of him, so now the government took alarm; it knew his philosophical reputation and ability. The story is a sad and short one. A mob assembled round his dwelling, which they committed to the flames; the houses of those who were known to be his friends shared the same fate; he narrowly escaped with his life; and for three days one of the chief cities of the nation was the scene of riot. All his philosophical instruments, most of them constructed by himself, his manuscripts, his library, the fruits of a frugal life, were destroyed; and, eventually