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Page 10
If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to
me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a
modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much
greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were
chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under
such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and
have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with
greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the
train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led
to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by
no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I
continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my
first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and
afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the
wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me
treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as
always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the
secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful
discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies
discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed
that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and
unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of
natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy's
apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit.
The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted
with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little
more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal
lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect,
anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes
in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I
had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep
human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and
ignorantly I had repined.
But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and
knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became
their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the
eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of education in
the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self-taught with
regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I
was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's
thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I
entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the
philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon
obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but
what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from
the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent
death! Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or
devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the
fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were
always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own
inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my
instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems,
mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and
floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge,
guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an
accident again changed the current of my ideas. When I was about
fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we
witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from
behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with
frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained,
while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and
delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire
issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from
our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had
disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited
it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner.
It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin
ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.
Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of
electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural
philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on
the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of
electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to
me. All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa,
Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by
some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my
accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever
be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew
despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps
most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former
occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed
and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a
would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of
real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the
mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as
being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration.
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