The old Greek philosopher Democritus, who is said by some authors to have actually put out his eyes in order that he might the better fit himself for the study of philosophy, would have presented a spectacle more to the taste of Anthony. The Eusebius mentioned above is not the celebrated ecclesiastical historian, but a person of the same name, described by Cassiodorus as an Asiatic, and eminent for his learning and his ability as a teacher, although he had lost his sight at five years of age, his right eye having become opaque, and his left being altogether destroyed. NICASIUS DE VOERDA, or NICAISE OF VOURDE, taught the canon and civil law in the University of Cologne, in the fifteenth century, and is said to have possessed extraordinary erudition both in literature and science, although he had been blind from his third year. He was wont to quote with great readiness the books of which he had acquired a knowledge only from having heard them read by others. To these instances we may add that of the COUNT DE PAGAN, who was born in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and has been accounted the father of the modern science of fortification. Having entered the army at the early age of twelve, he lost his left eye before he was seventeen, at the siege of Montauban. He still, however, pursued his profession with unabated ardour, and distinguished himself by many acts of brilliant courage. At last, when about to be sent into Portugal with the rank of field marshal, he was seized with an illness which deprived him of his remaining eye. He was yet only in his thirty-eighth year, and he determined that the misfortunes he had already sustained in the service of his country should not prevent him from recommencing his public career in a new character. He had always been attached to mathematics, and he now devoted himself assiduously to the prosecution. of his favourite study, with a view principally to the improvement of the science of fortification, for which his great experience in the field particularly fitted him. During the twenty years after this which he passed in a state of total blindness, he gave a variety of publications to the world; among which may be mentioned, besides his well-known and largest work on Fortification, his Geometrical Theorems, and his Astronomical Tables. He is also the author of a rare book, called An Historical and Geographical Account of the River of the Amazons, which is remarkable as containing a chart asserted to have been made by himself after he was blind. It is said not to be very correct, although a wonderful production for such an artist. The distinguished mathema in every way the most remarkable example on record of activity in scientific labours. The mere catalogue which has been published of his works extends to fifty printed pages. 'It may be asserted, without exaggeration,' says Lacroix,1 that he composed more than one-half of the mathematical memoirs contained in the fortysix quarto volumes which the academy of Petersburg published from 1727 to 1783; and he left at his death about a hundred memoirs ready for the press, which the same academy inserted in many of the volumes it still continued to give to the world. In addition to this immense mass of productions, he composed various separate works, extremely im tician, EULER, was struck with blindness in his fifty-ninth year, his sight having fallen a sacrifice to his indefatigable application. He had literally written and calculated himself blind. Yet after this misfortune he continued to calculate, and to dictate books, at least, if not to write them, as actively as ever. His Elements of Algebra, a work that has been translated into every language of Europe, was dictated by him when blind to an amanuensis who was only a tailor's apprentice, but who, though altogether unacquainted with algebra when he began his task, is said to have acquired a complete knowledge of that science in the course of merely taking down what Euler spoke, with such admirable clearness and simplicity is the work com-portant in respect of the subjects posed. His Algebra was fol- of which they treat, and many lowed by several other most of them of considerable magniingenious and elaborate works, tude. He likewise greatly enamong which particularly de- riched the collections of the serve to be mentioned his New academy of Berlin during the Theory of the Moon's Motions, twenty-five years which he and the tables by which it was passed in that city. He preaccompanied, the computation sented several memoirs to the of which, by a person in Euler's Academy of Sciences of Paris, situation, not only deprived of the prizes offered by which he sight, but harassed by other ten times succeeded in carrying misfortunes (for while he was or dividing; nor did he disdain engaged on this work, his house to contribute to the transactions was burned to the ground by of less illustrious associations of a fire from which he narrowly the learned. In fine, it requires escaped with his life), cannot the incontrovertible evidence of but be regarded as one of the facts to convince us that so most wonderful triumphs ever many labours can all have been achieved by the energy of mind performed by one man, who over the opposition of circum- passed the last seventeen years stances. But Euler affords us 1 Biographie Universelie. 1 of his life in a state of blindness.' As a proof that even this statement rather underrates than exaggerates the amazing industry and fertility of Euler, we may just add, that in the list of his works already referred to there are enumerated, of separate publications alone, twenty-nine volumes quarto and two octavo, in Latin; one volume quarto and six octavo, in German; and five volumes octavo, in French. Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, 'were the favourite employments of his infant years. At a very early age he made himself acquainted with the use of edged tools so perfectly, that notwithstanding his entire blindness, he was able to make little wind-mills; and he even constructed a loom with his own hands, which still show the cicatrices of wounds he received in the execution of these juvenile exploits.' Besides a knowledge of the ancient languages and of music, he is stated by Mr. Bew, who became acquainted with him about the year 1782, to have made himself extensively conversant with algebra and geometry, and with chemistry, mechanics, optics, astronomy, and the other departments of natural science. At this time he was engaged in delivering lectures We may mention still another, though certainly a very inferior name, that of the late Dr. HENRY MOYES. Moyes was born at Kirkcaldy, in Fifeshire, and lost his sight by small-pox before he was three years old, so that he scarcely retained in after-life any recollection of having ever seen. Yet he used to say, that he remembered having once observed a water-mill in motion; and it is characteristic of the tendencies of his mind, that even at that early age his attention was attracted by the circumstance of the water flowing in one direction, while the wheel (having been what is called an undershot wheel) turned round in the opposite, a mystery on which he reflected for some time before he could compre-blind have usually been remarkhend it. Blind as he was, he distinguished himself when a boy by his proficiency in all the usual branches of a literary education. But 'mechanical exercises,' says Mr. Bew, who has given a short account of him in the first volume of the on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in the dif ferent large towns throughout the country. He used to perform all his experiments, we are told, with his own hands, and with extraordinary neatness. Moyes possessed all that extreme delicacy in the senses of touch and hearing for which the able. We have been told, that having been one day accosted in the street by a young friend whom he had not met with for a good many years, his instant remark on hearing his voice was, 'How much taller you have grown since we last met!' When first brought into a company, his custom was to remain silent for a short time, until by the sound of the different voices he had made himself acquainted with the size of the room, and the number of persons in it. He was then quite at his ease, readily distinguished one speaker from another, and shone greatly himself by his powers of conversation. Although at that time not in affluent circumstances, and having indeed nothing to depend upon except the very precarious occupation to which he had betaken himself, he was remarkable for his cheerfulness and buoyant spirits. He contrived for himself a system of palpable arithmetic, on a different principle from that of Saunderson, and possessing the advantage in point of neat ness and simplicity. An explanation of it may be found in a letter from himself, inserted at the time in the Encyclopædia Britannica under the article 'Blind.' Dr. Moyes, who must have been a person of extraordinary mental endowments, and who affords us certainly, next to Saunderson, the most striking example on record of attainments in the mathematics made without any assistance from the eye, received his degree from a college in America, in which country he lectured for some years. He eventually made in this way a good deal of money; and some time before his death had retired to the town of Pittenweem, not far from his native place, where his society was much courted. His lectures are said to have been well delivered, and his explanations were eminently perspicuous. It has been reported that he could distinguish colours by the touch; but as this circumstance is not mentioned in his friend Dr. Blacklock's article just referred to, we may fairly assume that he did not himself pretend to the possession of any such power. CHAPTER XVII. DIFFICULTIES OCCASIONED BY BLINDNESS CONQUERED: HOMER --MILTON SALINAS- STANLEY -METCALF HENRY THE MINSTREL SCAPINELLI BLACKLOCKANNA WILLIAMSHUBER. MATHEMATICAL investigation is, strictly speaking, merely a mental exercise, and it is certainly conceivable that every theorem man has yet demonstrated in abstract science might have been discovered by him without the aid of his external senses. But, on the other hand, every operation of mind is so greatly facilitated by the employment of sensible symbols, and especially the processes of acquiring, apprehending, and recollecting knowledge, as well as of pursuing long and intricate calculations or deductions, receive such important assistance from those lines, figures, letters, and other marks which may be made to present the record of every thought faithfully to the eye, that we are justified in quoting any remarkable case of progress, even in abstract science, attained without the aid of this invaluable organ, as a noble example of what perseverance may accom plish in the face of the most formidable difficulties. It is much even for the mind to rise superior to so crushing a calamity as the loss of sight, and to maintain or recover its spirit of exertion under a deprivation which may be said to take from it for ever that which nature has appointed to be at once the chief helpmate and best sweetener of its labours. It would seem almost as if life could scarcely continue desirable to him whose hourly thought may be expressed in the language, familiar to all, of Milton's beautiful and pathetic lamentation: |