Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/51

Rh knowledge. He diligently followed the course of the College of France and of the Sorbonne, of the École des Mines, of the Museum, and of the Bibliothèque. He visited the workshops with eager interest, and made himself familiar with the processes of manufacture; mathematical sciences, natural history, industrial art, political economy,—all these he cultivated with equal ardor. I have seen him not only practise as an amusement, but search theoretically into, gymnastics, fencing, swimming, dancing, and even skating. In even these things Sadi acquired a superiority which astonished specialists when by chance he forgot himself enough to speak of them, for the satisfaction of his own mind was the only aim that he sought.

He had such a repugnance to bringing himself forward that, in his intimate conversations with a few friends, he kept them ignorant of the treasures of science which he had accumulated. They never knew of more than a small part of them. How was it that he determined to formulate his ideas about the motive power of heat, and especially to publish them? I still ask myself this question,—I, who lived with him in the little apartment where our father was confined in the Rue du Parc-Royal while the police of the first Restoration were