Curiosities of Human Nature

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Goodrich Samuel Griswold. Curiosities of Human Nature

ZERAH COLBURN

BARATIERE

GASSENDI

PASCAL

GROTIUS

NEWTON

MAGLIABECCHI

JAMES CRICHTON

BERONICIUS

MASTER CLENCH

JEDEDIAH BUXTON

WILLIAM GIBSON

EDMUND STONE

RICHARD EVELYN

QUENTIN MATSYS

WEST

BERRETINI

HENRY KIRK WHITE

MOZART

ELIHU BURRITT

GEORGE MORLAND

WILLIAM PENN

JOHN SMITH

ETHAN ALLEN

DAVID CROCKETT

DANIEL BOONE

CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN

THE CID

ROBIN HOOD

PAUL JONES

MASANIELLO

RIENZI

SELKIRK

JOHN LAW

TRENCK

JOHN DUNN HUNTER

CASPER HAUSER

PSALMANAZAR

VALENTINE GREATRAKES

MATTHEW HOPKINS

PETER, THE WILD BOY

JOHN KELSEY

BAMFYLDE MOORE CAREW

JOHN ELWES

BARON D'AGUILAR

THOMAS GUY

OLD PARR

O'BRIEN

MAXAMILLIAN CHRISTOPHER MILLER

HUYALAS

THOMAS TOPHAM

FOSTER POWELL

JOSEPH CLARK

EDWARD BRIGHT

DANIEL LAMBERT

JEFFREY HUDSON

JOSEPH BORUWLASKI

THE SIAMESE TWINS

Отрывок из книги

John Philip Baratiere was a most extraordinary instance of the early and rapid exertion of mental faculties. He was the son of Francis Baratiere, minister of the French church at Schwoback, near Nuremberg, where he was born, January 10, 1721. The French was his mother tongue, and German was the language of the people around him. His father talked to him in Latin, and with this he became familiar; so that, without knowing the rules of grammar, he, at four years of age, talked French to his mother, Latin to his father, and High Dutch to the servants and neighboring children, without mixing or confounding the respective languages.

About the middle of his fifth year, he acquired a knowledge of the Greek: so that in fifteen months he perfectly understood all the Greek books in the Old and New Testament, which he translated into Latin. When five years and eight months old, he entered upon Hebrew; and in three years more, was so expert in the Hebrew text, that, from a Bible without points, he could give the sense of the original in Latin or French, or translate, extempore, the Latin or French versions into Hebrew. He composed a dictionary of rare and difficult Hebrew words; and about his tenth year, amused himself, for twelve months, with the rabbinical writers.

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During Pascal's residence with his father at Rouen, and while he was only in his nineteenth year, he invented his famous arithmetical machine, by which all numerical calculations, however complex, can be made by the mechanical operation of its different parts, without any arithmetical skill in the person who uses it. He had a patent for this invention in 1649. His studies, however, began to be interrupted when he reached his eighteenth year by some symptoms of ill health, which were thought to be the effect of intense application, and which never afterwards entirely quitted him; so that he was sometimes accustomed to say, that from the time he was eighteen, he had never passed a day without pain. But Pascal, though out of health, was still Pascal; ever active, ever inquiring, and satisfied only with that for which an adequate reason could be assigned. Having heard of the experiments instituted by Torricelli, to find out the cause of the rise of water in fountains and pumps, and of the mercury in the barometer, he was induced to repeat them, and to make others, to satisfy himself upon the subject.

In 1654, he invented his arithmetical triangle, for the solution of problems respecting the combinations of stakes, in unfinished games of hazard; and long after that, he wrote his Demonstrations of the Problems relating to the Cycloid; besides several pieces on other subjects in the higher branches of the mathematics, for which his genius was probably most fitted. Pascal, though not rich, was independent in his circumstances; and as his peculiar talents, his former habits, and the state of his health, all called for retirement, he adopted a secluded mode of life. From 1655, he associated only with a few friends of the same religious opinions with himself, and lived for the most part in privacy in the society of Port Royal.

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