Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/128

122 by the leg, threw him to the earth, tumbled him into the gutter and went on his way amid the shouts of the crowd, who were amazed at this exhibition of dexterity and strength.

The hopes of the Democracy, however, appeared to be short-lived, and Carnot returning to his scientific studies applied to them his pent-up political ardor. He undertook important researches upon the physical properties of gases and vapors, especially upon their elastic tensions. Unfortunately his tables were not completed. His excessive application was followed by an attack of scarlet fever in June, 1832, and while convalescing from this attack he was seized on the twenty-fourth of August with the epidemic of cholera and died in a few hours. As if by a sinister presentiment he had been watching the advance of the epidemic very closely, when without previous warning he was carried away upon its tide in the very prime of life, being but thirty-six years of age.

Although the one work that he published is sufficient to keep his name from being forgotten among scientists, yet it is from portions of his note-book that we learn of the activity of his spirit, the variety of his knowledge, his love for humanity and his clear ideas of justice and liberty. In these notes we find rules of practical conduct; observations later embodied in his memoir; some thought that happened especially to strike him, sad or gay; sometimes also, though seldom, an outburst of ill feeling against men and society; thoughts on general political economy or on taxation in particular; and on morals and religion. Some of the ideas contained in these notes remind one not a little of 'Poor Richard's Almanac,' and are so quaintly set that it will doubtless be of interest to quote a few.

The promptness with which a resolution comes to one generally accords with the justice of it.

Never feign a character that you do not possess, and never assume a personality that you will not be able to sustain.

Speak little of that which you know; not at all of that which you do not know. Why not the more often say: 'I do not know'?

Hope is the greatest of blessings; it is necessary, therefore, in order to be happy, to sacrifice the present to the future.

I do not know why one always confounds the two expressions: 'Good sense' and 'common sense.' Nothing is less common than good sense.

People speak of the laws of war, as if war were not the destruction of all law.

Men attribute to chance that of which they do not know the cause. If they come to divine the cause, the chance disappears. To say that a thing happens by chance is to say that we have not been able to foresee it. What is chance for an ignorant man, may not be chance for a man more instructed.

Carnot possessed a repugnance toward publicity, so that, except in conversation with a small number of intimate friends, those among