[74]. The zeal and attention with which our young philosopher pursued his early studies, and such mechanical objects as are more intimately connected with those branches of natural philosophy to which he was most devoted, will appear from the following extract of a letter, addressed by him to Mr. Barton, on the 20th of September, 1756, being then little more than twenty-four years of age; viz. “I have not health for a soldier,” (the country was then engaged in war,) “and as I have no expectation of serving my country in that way, I am spending my time in the old trifling manner, and am so taken with optics, that I do not know whether, if the enemy should invade this part of the country, as Archimedes was slain while making geometrical figures on the sand, so I should die making a telescope.”
[75]. It[It] is observable, that, in like manner, an accidental circumstance seems to have given the first impulse to the philosophical researches of that eminent mathematician, Colin Maclaurin, the friend and disciple of Newton. His biographer, Mr. Murdoch, relates, that “his genius for mathematical learning discovered itself so early as at twelve years of age; when, having accidentally met with a copy of Euclid in a friend’s chamber, in a few days he became master of the first six books, without any assistance: and thence, following his natural bent, made such a surprising progress, that very soon after we find him engaged in the most curious and difficult problems.”
It is not ascertained at what age Rittenhouse obtained access to his uncle Williams’s little collection of books and papers; though it was, probably, before his twelfth year. But it is to be observed, that at the early age of twelve, Maclaurin had been a year at the University of Glasgow, where he was placed under the care of one of the most eminent and learned professors of the age; while Rittenhouse, for some years after that period of life, had his time occupied in agricultural pursuits, and was almost entirely uneducated.
One particular in which similar merit attaches itself to these two distinguished philosophers, is, that all their more serious studies were directed towards objects of general utility.
Having introduced the name of Maclaurin more than once into these Memoirs, the author of them cannot refrain from presenting to his readers the following epitaph upon that great mathematician. It is attributed to the late Dr. Johnson: the delicacy and chasteness of the sentiment, as well as the classical purity of the language, certainly render it a specimen of this species of composition worthy of the pen of that justly-admired writer.—
H. L. P. E.
Non ut nomine paterno consulat;
Nam tali auxilio nil eget;
Sed, ut in hoc infelici campo,
Ubi luctus regnant et pavor,