The Conclusion: Comprehending — A Retrospect of the Life of David Rittenhouse
With
A DELINEATION OF HIS CHARACTER.
“It has been the fashion of late years,” says his eloquent Eulogist,302 “to say of persons who had been distinguished in life,—when they left the world in a state of indifference to every thing, and believing and hoping in nothing,—that they died like Philosophers.” Rittenhouse did not, indeed, die like a disciple of that new philosophy, referred to by the Eulogist,—like some of those modern pretenders to illumination, who have been struggling to resuscitate all the maddening dreams and absurdities of the Pyrrhonists of old: His last hours were similar to those, which graced the departure from the world, of a Newton and a Boyle, with very many illustrious Christians besides, who truly deserved the name of Philosophers;—for, “he died like a Christian, interested in the welfare of all around him—believing in the resurrection, and the life to come, and hoping for happiness from every attribute of the Deity.”303
By his last will and testament, which was not executed till the day preceding his death, Dr. Rittenhouse disposed of his estate in a very equitable manner, between Mrs. Rittenhouse and his two daughters, besides making a liberal provision for an amiable widowed sister, so long as she should live.
It appears, from an estimate of his estate made by himself, (and supposed to have been drawn up about a year before his death,) that all the property he ever acquired, independently of his patrimony, which he valued at one thousand pounds, actually cost him only 13,525l.:304 and the whole of his estate was estimated, at the time of his decease, at scarcely twenty thousand pounds. When it is considered, that the talents of this very extraordinary man were actively and industriously employed more than forty years, from the time he attained to manhood, during many years of which period, he was engaged in various public occupations, and some of them lucrative; that he was prudent and exact in all his transactions, private as well as public, and economical in his domestic expenditures; and that his family was small;—when all these considerations are taken into view, they furnish matter of surprize that he should not have accumulated a larger fortune! Indeed the moderate amount of the estate he left, affords reasonable grounds for supposing, that he devoted more of his property to purposes of beneficence, than the world had any opportunity of becoming acquainted with.
Dr. Rittenhouse survived both his sons-in-law; and their widows305 are his only remaining children. He constituted these daughters, with Mrs. Rittenhouse, the executrices of his will.
The remains of our philosopher were deposited, agreeably to a desire he had expressed long before his death, beneath the pavement within the small Observatory which he erected many years before, in the garden adjoining his house; and over the body was placed a plain slab of marble, inscribed only with his name, the time of his decease, and his age. Although it was intended that his interment should be attended by his family-connexions alone,—in consequence of which, no other persons were asked to the funeral,—a numerous body of his friends voluntarily presented themselves on the occasion, as a mark of their respect for his memory. The Rev. Dr. Green was one of the number; and this clergyman, being then the pastor of the congregation in which the deceased had often attended divine worship in the latter years of his life, delivered a short but appropriate address to a surrounding auditory of mourning and afflicted friends.—“This,” began the reverend orator, pointing to the tomb of our philosopher, as just described,—“This is, emphatically, the Tomb of Genius and of Science! Their child, their martyr, is here deposited,—and their friends will make his Eulogy, in tears. I stand not here, to pronounce it; the thought that engrosses my mind, is this;—how much more clear and impressive must be the views, which the late Spiritual Inhabitant of that lifeless corpse now possesses of God,—of his infinite existence, of his adorable attributes and of that eternal blaze of glory which emanates from Him,—than when she was blinded by her veil of flesh! Accustomed, as she was, to penetrate far into the universe,—far as corporeal or mental vision here can reach,—still, what new and extensive scenes of wonder have opened on her eyes, enlightened and invigorated by death! The Discoveries of Rittenhouse, since he died, have already been more, and greater, than while he lived.306 Yes; and, could he address us from the spiritual world, his language would be—
“All, all on Earth is shadow, all Beyond
Is substance; the reverse is folly’s creed.”
Proceeding with a fervid expression of many excellent and pious sentiments, excited by the occasion and well adapted to it, the orator thus concluded:—“Filled with these reflections, let us go from this Tomb, and resolve to aim at the high destiny of our nature. Rightly aiming at this, we shall fill up life with usefulness and duty; we shall bear its burdens with patience; and we shall look forward to its close with pleasure: we shall consider death but as the birth of a new and nobler existence,—as a dark but short passage to the regions of eternal day; and, in the very agony of our change, we may exclaim in triumph,—‘O Death, where is thy Sting! O Grave where is thy Victory!’—Thanks be to God! who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Dr. Rittenhouse was, in his stature, somewhat tall; in his person, slender and straight; and although his constitution was delicate, his bodily frame did not appear to have been, originally, weak: his gait was somewhat quick, and his movements in general were lively; insomuch, that it is probable he possessed a good deal of corporeal activity, in early life.
His face was of an oval form; his complexion, fair; and his hair, which in his latter years became thinned and whitened, was brown. All his features were good: his forehead was high, capacious and smooth; his eyes, which were of a greyish colour, were alike expressive of animation, reflection and good nature, and well placed under full, arched brows; his nose was large, handsome, and inclined to the aquiline; his mouth, well-formed, though a little prominent, and corresponding with the general character of the face; and his chin, broad and strong. In short, his whole countenance was indicative of intelligence, complacency and goodness, even after its characteristic marks had been in some degree impaired by sickness and years. Dr. Rush observes, that his countenance was too remarkable to be unnoticed. “It displayed,” says the Doctor, “such a mixture of contemplation, benignity, and innocence, that it was easy to distinguish his person in the largest company, by a previous knowledge of his character.”307 Such were, upon the whole, the figure and appearance of David Rittenhouse; but more particularly, in his earlier life: and, as thus described, he was generally considered an handsome man.
Many indications of the respect and esteem entertained for the memory of this distinguished man, appeared soon after his death: among others may be mentioned the following.
Mr. Adet, then minister plenipotentiary from “The French Republic” to the United States, and resident in Philadelphia, addressed a letter on the subject of Dr. Rittenhouse, under the date of “19th Messidor, the 4th year of the French Republic” (answering to the 7th of July, 1806, of the Christian Calendar,) to the writer of these Memoirs. This gentleman—who was represented to be a man of considerable attainments in science, and was besides a member of the American Philosophical Society, professed, in that letter, a great desire to make the name of Rittenhouse known in his country,—for so he expressed himself; meaning, for that purpose, (as he said,) to transmit “to the National Institute of France an historical notice of his life and labours.” With this view, he accompanied his letter with a list of queries (twenty-five in number,) requesting the Memorialist to furnish answers to them; which was accordingly done, in a succinct manner: but whether the information the answers contained was ever applied to the purpose for which the querist stated them to be designed, the answerer has never ascertained. He will, however, conclude his observations on this part of his subject, with barely remarking, that the last of the proposed queries is in these words——“How did he bear the approaches of death?—did he die like a Philosopher?”
It is a matter of general notoriety, that Thomas Jefferson, Esq. of Virginia, (late President of the United States,) succeeded Dr. Rittenhouse in the Presidency of the American Philosophical Society; having been first elected to that station on the 6th of January, 1797, while he officiated as Secretary of State, and during his residence in Philadelphia. Of this appointment, Mr. Jefferson was duly notified, by a letter addressed to him by the Secretaries, in behalf of the society: and, in his reply to that communication, the president-elect paid a just tribute of respect to the character of his great and virtuous predecessor, in these concise terms:—“Permit me to avail myself of this opportunity of expressing the sincere grief I feel, for the loss of our beloved Rittenhouse. Genius, science, modesty, purity of morals, simplicity of manners, marked him as one of nature’s best samples of the perfection she can cover under the human form. Surely no society, till ours, within the same compass of time,308 ever had to deplore the loss of two such members as Franklin and Rittenhouse.”
In England, the talents of Dr. Rittenhouse were well known, and his worth duly appreciated. Of this, no better evidence can be required, than the spontaneous admission of him, by the Royal Society of London, into a Fellowship of their illustrious body. But, as a further proof of the high respect in which his character was held in that country, the obituary notice of him, which appeared in the European Magazine, (a periodical work of merit and taste,) for July, 1796, is inserted in the Appendix.
Besides other evidences which appeared, soon after the decease of our most distinguished philosopher, demonstrate the high estimation in which his character was held, by some eminent men in official stations, several private gentlemen of worth and erudition, have, long since, continued to manifest a laudable disposition either to erect, or to institute, some respectable and suitable memorial in honour of his name: and it can scarcely be doubted, that a grateful sense of his exemplary virtues, his transcendent talents and important public services, will yet effect the accomplishment of some such patriotic design. An honourable effort of this kind by a number of liberal and public spirited gentlemen of the county of Chester, in Pennsylvania, has recently been made: and notwithstanding the failure of the attempt, it is due to the merit of those individuals who were most zealous in their endeavours to accomplish the object, to notice their benevolent intentions on the occasion. In the autumn of the year 1811, the sum of nearly eight thousand dollars was subscribed, towards the purpose of erecting and endowing an Academy within the borough of West-Chester. Doctor William Darlington, with some other friends of literature and science in his neighbourhood, proposed to name the designed institution “The Rittenhouse Academy:” but as the establishment of a similar one, in a distant part of the same county, was at the same time contemplated; and, as the subscriptions to that proposed to be established in West-Chester, were, in the first instance, chiefly obtained in different parts of the county, for an institution then proposed to be called “The West-Chester Academy”—thus locating its situation exclusively to that borough; it was not deemed expedient to vary the chartered name of this Academy, when it should be incorporated, from the one by which it was originally designated.
Such were the causes of the disappointment, in relation to the proposed Rittenhouse Academy: but they are evidently such as cannot in the smallest degree detract from the meritorious intentions of those gentlemen, who were desirous of giving the institution, in West-Chester, that respectable name; nor are they less indicative of the respect which was intended to be shewn to the memory of Rittenhouse.
In addition, however, to the evidence which has been tendered by others to the exalted merits of our Philosopher, the memorialist is happy in having an opportunity to introduce, on this occasion, the testimony of a gentleman who was very long and intimately acquainted with Dr. Rittenhouse—and, consequently, well knew his worth as a man. This representation being likewise made by a person whose conspicuous attainments in similar departments of science, and arduous employments in practical pursuits of the same description, render him eminently qualified to judge of his deceased friend’s talents, he is by these means enabled to form a just estimate of his character. The person here referred to, is Andrew Ellicott, Esq. a gentleman with whom the writer of these Memoirs has been in habits of intimacy and friendship, many years. The information on this subject, communicated by Mr. Ellicott, being in the form of a letter addressed to the memorialist, he has given that communication a place in the Appendix.
That Dr. Rittenhouse had failings, cannot be questioned; since, to possess them, is the lot of every individual of our species. But his foibles—of whatever description they may have been—may be compared to some opaque spots, minute in size, which the prying eye of the astronomer has discovered to exist even on the glorious orb of the Sun; although these little maculæ are scarcely discernible by the generality of observers, by reason of the surrounding splendour of his beams: so, the diminutive failings which may be supposed to have existed in the character of our philosophical luminary, were rendered almost imperceptible, by the resplendency in which his great and numerous virtues were enveloped. It was said of that sublime artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, by the late celebrated Edmund Burke, that he did “not know a fault or weakness of his, that he did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of pushing it to the confines of a vice.”309 Dr. Rittenhouse, in like manner, was perfectly uncontaminated by any vice; while “his virtues furnish the most shining models for imitation:” and, in regard even to his foibles, the declaration of his Eulogist, just quoted, that his virtues “were never obscured, in any situation or stage of his life, by a single cloud of weakness or vice,”310 may be fairly received in the same liberal sense, as Mr. Burke’s expression concerning his worthy friend, Reynolds.
If a retrospect be now taken of the whole Life of our Philosopher, in whatever points of view it may be contemplated, the following characteristic traits will be found to be faithfully delineated; although it is at the same time acknowledged, that the portrait is still too incomplete to afford a perfect resemblance to the excellent character of the original.
In his temper, Dr. Rittenhouse was naturally placid and good-humoured; yet sometimes grave, and inclined to pensiveness. He was occasionally, though seldom, animated by a considerable degree of warmth: but he did not suffer himself to be influenced, on any occasion, by impetuous passions; nor did any man ever possess a temper more placable. His general deportment was gentle, unassuming and cheerful; such as corresponded with his modesty of disposition and the delicacy of his feelings.311 He possessed a good share of constitutional firmness of mind; and was seldom either much or long depressed, by such misfortunes or afflictions as bore chiefly upon himself: still, however, the great benevolence of his temper rendered him extremely sensible to the sufferings of others. The bodily infirmities of such as came within his more immediate notice, and the privations occasioned by helpless indigence, more especially of aged persons, often experienced in him a consoling friend and a liberal benefactor; provided they appeared to be objects worthy of charitable assistance. But where the sufferings or wants of others evidently resulted either from confirmed inebriety or other vicious habits, or from indolence or censurable improvidence, he was not accustomed to extend the hand of charitable bounty with the same cordiality. His means of affording pecuniary assistance to such of his fellow-men as needed it, were circumscribed by bounds of moderate extent: yet, in proportion to his resources, his acts of charity were laudable in their degree, as well as in regard to the objects of his benevolence, and entirely destitute of ostentation: they were dictated both by the humanity of his heart and a sense of moral duty.
Notwithstanding the predominating mildness of his disposition, he was capable of being roused on some occasions, to pretty strong emotions of indignation; and nothing would excite these feelings in his mind more readily, or in a higher degree, than instances of great cruelty, oppression or injustice, whether of a public or private nature.312
His long continued habits of contemplation and study, and his seclusion from the busy world until the full meridian of life, created in his mind a fondness for tranquillity. This disposition, co-operating with his humanity and love of justice, made him a friend to peace; insomuch, that he deprecated a state of warfare, even in cases attended by colourable pretexts of right and expediency, for engaging in it. Hence, he could not refrain from attaching to the late warlike Sovereign of Prussia, “the mighty Frederick,” the appellation of “Tyrant of the North and Scourge of Mankind;”313 believing, as he did, that this monarch was more influenced by an unfeeling personal ambition and thirst of military fame, than either by the justness of his cause or a desire to promote the happiness of his subjects.
With such feelings and such views of the subject as these, our Philosopher could not consider that as a justifiable cause of war, which has not for its object, either the defence of a country against an hostile invader, or the security of the state and the support of the liberties of the people, against treasonable domestic insurrections.314
His habits and manners were such as comported with the honest sincerity of his heart, the amiable simplicity of his whole character,315 and the nature of his pursuits in life. He loved quiet and order, and preferred retirement to the bustle of the world: and these dispositions endeared to him the comforts of domestic society. He considered ambition, pomp and ostentation, as being generally inconsistent with true happiness. His sentiments respecting luxury are expressed in very energetic language, in his Oration: he viewed it as the constant forerunner of tyranny; and both, as being, eventually, the means of destroying useful science, though professing to be its friends. Yet he was far from being inimical to that mutual “exchange of benefits,”316 which is effected by means of foreign commerce; or to those intercourses of society, which augment our rational enjoyments: he was, in truth, a friend to beneficial trade, and approved of those “social refinements, which really add to our happiness, and induce us with gratitude to acknowledge our great Creator’s goodness.”317 But he justly distinguished between that sort of commerce with foreign nations, that conduces to the well-being of mankind, and such as is obviously immoral in itself, or deleterious in its consequences. Of both these latter descriptions, he considered the slave-trade; a traffic, against which he bore his testimony more than thirty-seven years ago: and, as Dr. Rush has emphatically observed in respect to what he had advanced in favour of Christianity, “the single testimony of David Rittenhouse,” on the the one side, “outweighs the declamations of whole nations,” on the other. Commerce of an injurious nature, he viewed to be such as ministers more to the debauching luxuries of mankind, than to their necessities, conveniencies and substantial comforts.
No man had less of “the gloomy spirit of misanthropy,” than Dr. Rittenhouse: his whole life evinced, “with what ardour,” to use his own words, “he wished for the happiness of the whole race of mankind.” And, that he detested penuriousness, the contemptuous manner in which he has treated the character of the miser, in his Oration, is sufficient to testify. A manly spirit of independence, on the one hand, and a disposition, on the other, to partake rationally of what are called the good things of the world, induced him to pursue, in his style of living, a middle course, between extreme parsimony and a prodigality equally censurable. He was therefore, an economist. “His economy,” as Dr. Rush has justly remarked, even “extended to a wise and profitable use of his time:” for he was, when most in health, an early riser; and devoted much of his time to reading and other studies, when not otherwise engaged or usefully employed. So inestimable did our Philosopher deem this gift of heaven to man, that, says his Eulogist, he observed on a certain occasion, “that he once thought health the greatest blessing in the world, but he now thought there was one thing of much greater value, and that was time.”318
Though rather plain and simple than otherwise, in all his domestic arrangements, he lived well,—in the common acceptation of the phrase. Nor was he in any respect deficient in that decorum in his personal appearance, and in the modest appendages of his household, which corresponded with his character and station in society. There was not the least affectation of any thing like parade or splendour, in his manner of living. In his dress he was remarkably neat, correct and gentlemanlike: his house, with its furniture were of a corresponding style of propriety; the mansion itself, with every thing appurtenant to it, seemed to denote its being the residence of good sense, elegant simplicity, and genuine comfort.
Neither the delicate state of his constitution, nor his almost unceasing employment, either in business or study, when enjoying his ordinary portion of health, permitted Dr. Rittenhouse to participate in the society of his friends, at his table, in that manner which an hospitable disposition and a desire to mingle in the conversation of estimable men, led him to wish. Yet he occasionally had a very few friends to dine with him; and on those occasions, he avoided every thing that could bear the least appearance of ostentation. He received, however, frequent visits in the evening, from persons whom he respected and esteemed,—at the time of taking tea, a beverage which was very grateful to him. It was on such occasions, more particularly, that he would unbend; he would then bear his part in reciprocations of amusement, as well as instruction, with great good humour, sometimes even pleasantry, if he were tolerably well. “As a companion,” says Dr. Rush, “he instructed upon all subjects:” an observation, of which the Writer of these Memoirs has, indeed, very often experienced the correctness; and there have been few men, perhaps, who ever had an opportunity of knowing his communicative disposition, from a personal acquaintance with him, that have not been either gratified or improved by his conversations.
But the same causes that prevented his seeing his friends, beyond the circle of his family-connections, at his own table, as often as the sociability of his temper must have prompted him to do, imposed on him the necessity of very frequently declining the acceptance of invitations from others; more especially, for large dining parties, and companies of formal visitors: his habits of great temperance, a dislike of much ceremoniousness, and an economical disposition of his time, were further inducements to his declining, very generally, such invitations.
In domestic life his whole conduct was perfectly exemplary. No man was ever a better husband or father, or a more indulgent master; nor was there ever a kinder relative. He educated his children very liberally; and in the society of these, together with his wife, a woman of excellent understanding, he enjoyed in an high degree, and for some years, the delights of a rational and endearing intercourse. In this little family-society, he experienced a large portion of domestic happiness, no otherwise alloyed than by the bodily sufferings he occasionally endured. And, as Dr. Rush observes,319—“when the declining state of his health rendered the solitude of his study less agreeable than in former years, he passed whole evenings in reading or conversing, with his wife and daughters.”—“Happy family!” exclaims his Eulogist, “so much and so long blessed with such a head!—and happier still, to have possessed dispositions and knowledge to discern and love his exalted character, and to enjoy his instructing conversation!”
In his friendship, as in all his social affections, he was perfectly sincere; for, his ardent love of truth led him to detest every species of dissimulation. He was warmly attached to many estimable characters, among those with whom he was acquainted; and he enjoyed, in return, their friendship and respect: besides which, he possessed in an high degree the esteem of all his fellow-citizens, to whom his name and character were well known. With not a few persons, who were either distinguished by literature and science, or by ingenuity, and information on general topics or particular subjects of useful knowledge, he was in habits of intimacy: in the list of these, might be placed several of the most eminent and dignified characters in America.
Dr. Rittenhouse’s epistolary correspondence, even with his personal friends, was by no means extensive: indeed the most of these, after his removal to Philadelphia, were there his fellow-citizens. His almost incessant employment, either in public or private business, occupied his time so fully as to allow him little leisure, when in the enjoyment of health; and sensible of the repeated inroads which the privation of this blessing made on his profitable time, he was covetous of every hour, in which his industry could be most conveniently as well us usefully engaged. He therefore, like the celebrated Dr. Bradley,320 published little. Possibly, too, this circumstance in relation to both these great astronomers, may have been, in some degree, occasioned by similar motives, a natural diffidence in their own faculties, extraordinary as others knew them to be. The English philosopher is even said to have been apprehensive, that a publication of his works might prove injurious to his reputation; and, therefore, he suppressed many of his papers: but whether our astronomer made preparations for publishing any large systematic work, in his favourite science, cannot be ascertained; the probability however is, that he did not, for want of time and health to engage in such an undertaking.
That the world possess so few of Dr. Rittenhouse’s philosophical papers, is a matter truly to be regretted: because records extensively promulgated, of the results of his numerous and laborious researches, concerning the most sublime and interesting operations of nature, would, beyond any doubt, have greatly added to the stock of human knowledge. And this regret is enhanced by the reflexion, that if the government of Pennsylvania could have conveniently pursued the plan proposed to them by the Philosophical Society, in the year 1775;321 or, had that or some such measure been adopted eight or ten years afterward, when the revolutionary war interposed no impediment to an important public arrangement of that nature; the world would, in all probability, at this day be in the possession of many additional productions of his vastly comprehensive genius. His astronomical discoveries and other fruits of his prolific mind, recorded by his pen, would in such case, it may be reasonably presumed, have redounded to the honour of his country and the benefit of mankind. But, that an American citizen of slender fortune, one who was (to use the strongly expressive terms of the Philosophical Society, on the occasion just mentioned,) “indebted for bread to his daily toil,”—that a man, thus circumstanced, could be expected to contribute a large portion of his inestimable time, wholly unrewarded, either to the public interests or the acquisition of personal fame, would be an impeachment of his prudence. Dr. Rittenhouse was not gratuitously furnished with a complete Observatory and Astronomical apparatus;322 nor, besides, recompensed by a liberal compensation from the public purse; in order that he might be enabled to devote himself to the public service, in scientific pursuits: Flamstead, Halley, Bliss, Bradley and Maskelyne, were so rewarded. Each of these eminent astronomers held, at different periods, the lucrative and honourable place of Regius Professor, or Astronomer Royal, at Greenwich.323
Notwithstanding Dr. Rittenhouse’s published writings are, for the reasons that have been assigned, not very extensive, his philosophical publications on various subjects, chiefly astronomical, are far from being inconsiderable in number; and some of them are highly important, while others discover the activity and force of his genius.324 The following is a list of his papers communicated to the Am. Philosophical Society, and published in their Transactions; arranged according to the dates at which they were severally read in the Society: viz.
1. The first volume, printed in the year 1771,325 contains—“A Description of a new Orrery; planned, and now nearly finished, by David Rittenhouse, A. M. of Norriton, in the county of Philadelphia:” communicated by Dr. Smith. Read, March 21. 1768.
2. “Calculation of the Transit of Venus over the Sun, as it is to happen, June 3d 1769, in Lat. 40° N. Long. 5h. W. from Greenwich:” communicated 21st of June, 1768.
3. An Account of the Transit of Mercury over the Sun, Nov. 9. 1769, as observed at Norriton, in Pennsylvania, by Dr. Smith, and Messrs. Lukens, Rittenhouse, and O. Biddle, the committee appointed for that purpose by the Am. Philos. Society: drawn up and communicated, by direction and in behalf of the committee, by Dr. Smith—July 20. 1769.
4. Observations on the Comet of June and July, 1770; with the elements of its motion and the trajectory of its path; in two letters from David Rittenhouse, M. A. to William Smith, D. D. Prov. Coll. Philad.326 Communicated, Aug. 3. 1770.
5. An easy method of deducing the True Time of the Sun’s passing the Meridian, per clock, from a comparison of four equal altitudes, observed on two succeeding days; by David Rittenhouse, A. M.327 Communicated by William Smith, D. D. Prov. Coll. Philad.—Aug. 17. 1770.
6. Account of the Terrestrial Measurement of the difference of Longitude between the Observatories of Norriton and Philadelphia; drawn up by the Rev. Dr. Smith, in behalf of Mr. Lukens, Mr. Rittenhouse and himself, the committee appointed by the Am. Philos. Society, for that purpose, agreeably to the request of the Astronomer-Royal of England. Dated, Aug. 17. 1770.
7. The second volume, printed in the year 1786, contains—An Explanation of an Optical deception. Read, March 3. 1780.
8. An Account of some Experiments on Magnetism; in a letter from Mr. Rittenhouse to John Page, Esq. of Williamsburgh. Read, Feb. 6. 1781.
9. A letter from David Rittenhouse, Esq. to John Page, Esq. in answer to one from Mr. Page;) concerning a remarkable Meteor, seen in Virginia and Pennsylvania, on the 31st of Oct. 1779. Read, May 2. 1783. (N. B. Mr. Rittenhouse’s letter is dated Jan. 16. 1780.)
10. Observations on a Comet lately discovered; communicated by David Rittenhouse, Esq.328 Read, March 19. 1784.
11. A new Method of placing the Meridian Mark; in a letter to the Rev. Dr. Ewing, Provost of the University. Read, November. 1785.
12. An Optical Problem, proposed by Mr. Hopkinson, and solved by Mr. Rittenhouse. Read, Feb. 17. 1786. (N. B. Mr. Hopkinson’s letter is dated March 16, 1785: the answer is without date.)
13. Astronomical Observations; communicated by Mr. Rittenhouse. Without date.329
14. The third volume, printed in the year 1793, contains—An Account of several Houses, in Philadelphia, struck with Lightning on the 7th of June, 1789; by Mr. D. Rittenhouse and Dr. John Jones. Read, July 17. 1789.
15. An Account of the Effects of a stroke of Lightning on a House furnished with two Conductors; in a letter from Messrs. David Rittenhouse and Francis Hopkinson, to Mr. R. Patterson. Read, October 15. 1790.
16. Astronomical Observations made at Philadelphia: viz. of a Lunar Eclipse, on the 2d of November, 1789; of the Transit of Mercury over the Sun’s disk, on the 5th of November, 1789; of an Eclipse of the Moon, on the 22d of October, 1790; of an Eclipse of the Sun, on the 6th of November, 1790; and of an Annular Eclipse of the Sun, on the 3d of April, 1791:330 with an Account of corresponding Observations of the two first of these Phænomena, made at the University of William and Mary in Virginia, by the Rev. Dr. Madison; and of the second, alone, made at Washington-College in Maryland, by the Rev. Dr. Smith: communicated by D. Rittenhouse. Read, February 4. 1791.
17. A Letter from Dr. Rittenhouse to Mr. Patterson, relative to a Method of finding the Sum of the several Powers of the Sines, &c. Read, May 18. 1792.
18. An Account of a Comet, (first observed by Mr. Rittenhouse, on the 11th of January, 1793:) in a letter from D. Rittenhouse to Mr. Patterson.331 Read, February 15. 1793.
The fourth volume, printed in the year 1799, (three years after Dr. Rittenhouse’s death,) contains—
19. A paper, “On the Improvement of Time-keepers;” by David Rittenhouse, LL. D. Pres. Am. Philos. Society. Read, November 7. 1794.332
20. A paper, “On the Expansion of Wood by Heat;” in a letter from David Rittenhouse, LL. D. Pres. Am. Philos. Society. Dated, May 15. 1795.
21. A Method of raising the common Logarithm of any number immediately; by D. Rittenhouse, LL. D. Pres. Am. Philos. Society. Read, August 12. 1795.
22. A communication, “On the Mode of determining the true Place of a Planet, in an eliptical Orbit, directly from the mean Anomaly by Converging Series;” by David Rittenhouse, Pres. Am. Phil. Society. Read, February 5. 1796.
This last communication was made to the Society, within five months of the time immediately preceding Dr. Rittenhouse’s death.
It is a strong evidence not only of our Philosopher’s industry, but of his attachment to that institution of which he was so great an ornament, that, in the course of the twenty-six years during which he was a member of it, he could find sufficient leisure,—almost constantly employed, as he was, in important public business, and frequently bereft of health,—to contribute so many valuable papers as he did, to the too scanty stock of its published Transactions. Dr. Franklin, who was a member of the Philosophical Society, and their president, for twenty-one years, furnished them with only eight communications during that time: and Mr. Jefferson, who has nominally occupied the president’s chair333 in the same Society above sixteen years, has favoured them with only two or three, within this period.
Had Dr. Rittenhouse enjoyed leisure to write, there are sufficient reasons to induce a belief, that his compositions would have been highly estimable; not solely for the subject matter of them, but for their manner also. It is true, he laboured under the privations of a liberal education: his style might therefore, perhaps, have been deficient in some of the ornamental appendages of classical learning. Nevertheless, the native energy of his mind, the clearness of his perceptions, the accuracy with which he employed his reasoning faculties,—in fine, the very extraordinary intellectual powers he displayed, when they were directed to the attainment of any species of human knowledge;—these would, doubtless, have supplied him with those beauties of language, which are usually, as well as most readily, derived from academic instruction. And in addition to all these, the sublimity of the objects which he so ardently and frequently contemplated, could scarcely fail to have communicated to his literary productions a due portion of an elevated style, when treating on subjects of a corresponding character. Dr. Rush, in noticing the address delivered by Rittenhouse before the Philosophical Society in the year 1775, observes, that “the language of this Oration is simple, but” that “the sentiments contained in it are ingenious, original, and in some instances sublime:” in another place, the learned Eulogist styles it an “eloquent performance.” It is presumed, that these characteristic features of that little work are not unaptly applied; and it will be found, on perusal, to be also strongly tinctured, throughout, with a vein of exalted piety334 and universal benevolence.
Dr. Rittenhouse, by the vigour of his mind, by the transcendent powers of his genius, had surmounted the disadvantages of a defective education, as some few other great men have done; but it may be fairly inferred from the nature of things, that, had not that privation existed in the case of our Philosopher, he would have shone with a still superior lustre, not merely as a man of science, but as a literary character.335
The Writer of these Memoirs sincerely regrets, that he differs very widely, indeed, on this head, from a gentleman who has, himself, been distinguished in the literary world by his learning, as well as by his genius and science. “In speaking of Mr. Rittenhouse,” says his eloquent Eulogist, “it has been common to lament his want of what is called a liberal education.”—“Were education what it should be, in our public seminaries,” continues our ingenious Professor, “this would have been a misfortune; but conducted as it is at present, agreeably to the systems adopted in Europe in the fifteenth century, I am disposed to believe that his extensive knowledge, and splendid character, are to be ascribed chiefly to his having escaped the pernicious influence of monkish learning upon his mind, in early life. Had the usual forms of a public education in the United States been imposed upon him; instead of revolving through life in a planetary orbit, he would probably” says his Eulogist “have consumed the force of his genius by fluttering around the blaze of an evening taper: Rittenhouse the Philosopher, and one of the luminaries of the 18th century, might have spent his hours of study in composing syllogisms, or in measuring the feet of Greek and Latin poetry.” In another part of his Eulogium, (wherein he notices some fine and benevolent reflections of Dr. Rittenhouse, arising from a contemplation of particular works of nature,) Dr. Rush addresses an invocation to that distinguished class of learned men, the clergy, in terms corresponding with his sentiments just quoted:—“If such,” says he, “be the pious fruits of an attentive examination of the works of the Creator, cease, ye ministers of the gospel, to defeat the design of your benevolent labours, by interposing the common studies of the schools, between our globe and the minds of young people.”336
If, indeed, the “monkish learning” of the fifteenth century was now taught among us; if “composing syllogisms,” and “measuring the feet of Greek and Latin poetry,” were now the sole objects of scholastic instruction in this country; then might our learned Professor have anathematized, with good reason, the system of teaching in our Universities and Colleges. But it is well known, that the Aristotelian Philosophy, and what is denominated the Learning of the Schools, has been gradually declining in the European seminaries of learning, in the course of the last two centuries;337 and more particularly so, in the great schools of Britain and Ireland: that the system of academic instruction, deduced from the visionary theories of the philosophers of antiquity, is there, as well as here, nearly, if not entirely exploded. It is true, the Greek and Latin tongues are yet taught with great assiduity and success, in the British Isles; as they have hitherto been, among ourselves:338 and it is confidently hoped, that those languages will long continue to be cultivated with unabated zeal, in this country; whatever may be their fate on the European continent, where it is said they are rapidly declining, along with other branches of useful learning, and accompanied by an evident decay of many social refinements. Those languages are, in fact, valuable auxiliaries in the attainment of many branches of useful science, and have ever been considered the best substratum of polite learning and literary taste.
A man may, assuredly, be a profound astronomer; he may be eminently skilled in other branches of natural science, or in the doctrines of morals; he may be well versed in the polite arts; and yet may not understand either Greek or Latin. Nevertheless, an intimate and classical acquaintance with these languages cannot diminish the powers of his mind, or render him less capable of excelling in other departments of human knowledge. Bacon, Newton, Boyle, and Maclauren, with a multitude of others, the most distinguished for genius, science and learning, received an academical education; they were masters of the Greek and Latin languages; and were also instructed, without doubt, even in the formation of syllogisms:339 yet these great men were not the less eminent as philosophers. It is to be presumed, that, while at their several schools and colleges, they were employed in acquiring the more solid and useful parts of learning; as well as the ornamental and polite. Both are taught in all the higher seminaries; and to the Universities of the United States, as well as of Europe, are attached Professorships340 for such instruction.
The able and learned editor of “The American Review of History and Politics”341 remarks, that, “for very obvious reasons it could not be expected, that Philology would be duly appreciated, or cultivated to any extent, by the American public in general. The state of society in this country, so admirable under many points of view, renders this impossible. We should not be surprised or discouraged at a general ignorance of, and an almost universal indifference about the learned languages: but this is not all; the public feeling is not confined to mere apathy: it borders on hostility. Numbers are not wanting, persons even of influence in the community, who industriously proclaim, not simply the utter insignificance, but the pernicious tendency of classical learning; and who would proscribe it as idle in itself, and as dangerous to republicanism. At the same time, our progress in this pursuit is far from being in a natural ratio with our advances in other respects. Philology is in fact, even worse than stationary among us; from what cause, whether from the influence of the extraordinary notions just mentioned, or from the absence of all external excitements, we will not now pretend to determine.”
Should these judicious remarks of the respectable Reviewer be considered as containing an indirect censure on such “persons of influence” as he may be supposed to allude to, who “proclaim” the “pernicious tendency of classical learning,”—it is much to be lamented by the friends of literature and science, that there should be any just grounds for its support.
Dr. Rittenhouse understood the German342 and Low Dutch languages, well; and had acquired a sufficient knowledge of the French, to enable him to comprehend astronomical and other works written in that tongue. These acquisitions, it has been observed, “served the valuable purpose of conveying to him the discoveries of foreign nations, and thereby enabled him to prosecute his studies with more advantage in his native language.”343
But these were not the whole of his philological attainments. By the dint of genius, and by that spirit of perseverance which he manifested in every thing he undertook, he overcame in a great degree the difficulties of the Latin tongue.344 This he did for the same valuable purpose that he had in view, in learning the German, Low Dutch and French.
The reading of our Philosopher was extensive. It embraced every department of polite literature, as well as many branches of what is called, by way of distinction, useful knowledge. He appears to have been more particularly attached to history, voyages and travels, and to the poetick muse:345 but the drama, ingenious productions of the imagination, and other works of taste and fancy, likewise engaged a portion of his attention.346 Dr. Rush asserts, that he had early and deeply studied most of the different systems of theology.347 On this head, no further information can be given by the writer of these Memoirs: yet he thinks he has good reason for believing,—and such as are independent of Dr. Rittenhouse’s known liberality, with respect to various modes of faith and worship, that he never gave a very decided preference to any one regular society of Christians, over others; he loved that sort of Christianity, which inculcates sound morals: his charity, in regard to theological opinions and other concerns of religion, was great; and he felt no disposition to observe any thing like a scrupulous adherence to such tenets or rites, as he deemed less essential to the well-being of mankind. It was, in fact, the liberal manner (and this alone) in which he sometimes expressed himself on subjects of this nature, influenced by sentiments of the purest benevolence, that induced some persons of more rigid principles, and perhaps less candour, to doubt the soundness of his faith in revealed religion: but the whole tenor of his life, and the religious sentiments he had publicly and repeatedly avowed, shew how ill-founded such suspicions were.348 A mind so contemplative as his, so devoted to the pursuit of truth, so boundless in its views, and so ardently attached to virtue, would naturally lead him to an investigation of the principles of Christianity; and it is evident from some passages in his Oration, and also in his familiar letters to his friends, that he believed in the fundamental articles of the Christian faith,349 however he may have doubted respecting some of the more abstract and less important tenets of the church.
As Dr. Rittenhouse never attached himself to the distinguishing dogmas of any one sect of Christians; so, on the authority of a letter addressed to the Memorialist by Mr. B. Rittenhouse, soon after his brother’s decease, it may be asserted, that our Philosopher “was never joined in communion with any particular religious society; though he esteemed good men of all sects.” In his youth, it is probable he was bred a Baptist; the sect to which his father (and, it is believed, his mother also,) belonged: at subsequent periods, he entertained favourable opinions of the church of England, and of the principles of the quakers (so called.) In some of the latter years of his life, he and his family pretty frequently attended divine service in a presbyterian congregation, of which a very respectable and worthy gentleman then was the pastor and until very lately continued to officiate as such.350 That church is situated in the same street wherein Dr. Rittenhouse dwelt; and its then minister was one of many clergymen, belonging to different churches, whom he personally esteemed.
Some of his letters to his confidential friends testify, nevertheless, that he by no means embraced some of the doctrines of Calvinism: nor did he, probably, approve of others, in their more rigid interpretation.351 In one of those letters, addressed to the Rev. Mr. Barton, (an Episcopalian, of the English church,) from Philadelphia, so early as September, 1755, he wrote thus: “I have been here several days, and am fatigued and somewhat indisposed. You know my spirits are never very high, and will therefore expect a melancholy letter from me at present. I should be glad of opportunities to receive letters from you, and to write to you oftener:—indeed, I am desirous of disclosing to you some of my most serious thoughts.” It can scarcely be doubted, from the complexion of this paragraph and the character of the person to whom our then young philosopher was writing, that these “most serious thoughts,” which he wished so much to disclose to his clerical friend, related to some points in divinity. After subjoining, in the same letter, some reflexions, of such a cast as shew that his spirits were depressed by fatigue and indisposition, as was usually the case with him, he proceeded thus: “I assure you, notwithstanding, I am no misanthrope; but think good society one of the greatest blessings of life. Whatever is said of original sin, the depravity of our nature, and our propensity to all evil; though men are said to be wolves to men; yet, think, I can see abundance of goodness in human nature, with which I am enamoured. I would sooner give up my interest in a future state, than be divested of humanity;—I mean, that good-will which I have to the species, although one half of them are said to be fools, and almost the other half knaves. Indeed I am firmly persuaded that we are not at the disposal of a Being who has the least tincture of ill-nature, or requires any in us. You will laugh at this grave philosophy, or my writing to you on a subject you have thought of a thousand times. But, can any thing that is serious, be ridiculous? Shall we suppose Gabriel smiling at Newton, for labouring to demonstrate whether the earth moves or not, because the former plainly sees it move?”
This extract (the latter part of which constitutes a note to Dr. Rush’s Eulogium,) expresses, in the concluding sentence, a beautiful and apt allusion, in reference to the subject. It likewise contains a finely-turned compliment to the superior knowledge he presumed Mr. Barton to possess, on theological subjects; without its seeming to have been intended, that it should comprehend himself also,—otherwise than as he might be considered, for a moment, to be personating that branch of science which he most assiduously cultivated. The compliment, so far as it appeared to apply to himself, was unquestionably due to him; but his modesty would have forbidden his using it, even to a brother-in-law, could he have imagined at the instant of penning it, that a portion of it might be referred to himself, personally.
The whole scope of the passage, just quoted, “shews,” however, as his Eulogist has observed, “how early and deeply the principles of universal benevolence were fixed in his mind.” And in his Oration, composed when he was in the full meridian of life, our Philosopher has plainly indicated, that the same philanthropic spirit, that species of benevolence which is the basis of true religion, and that warmed his youthful breast, continued to animate it with unabated fervency: “That Being,” said he, “before whose piercing eye all the intricate foldings and dark recesses of the human heart become expanded and illuminated, is my witness, with what sincerity, with what ardour, I wish for the happiness of the whole race of mankind; how much I admire that disposition of lands and seas, which affords a communication between distant regions, and a mutual exchange of benefits; how sincerely I approve of those social refinements which really add to our happiness, and induce us with gratitude to acknowledge our great Creator’s goodness; how I delight in a participation of the discoveries made from time to time in nature’s works, by our philosophic brethren in Europe.”
In the opinion of our Philosopher, “every enlargement of our faculties, every new happiness conferred upon us, every step we advance towards the perfection of the Divinity, will very probably render us more and more sensible of his inexhaustible stores of communicable bliss, and of his inaccessible perfections.”352 He supposed, that, even in this world, “wherein we are only permitted ‘to look about us and to die,’ there is ample provision made for employing every faculty of the human mind; even allowing its powers to be constantly enlarged through an endless repetition of ages;” but admitting, at the same time, “that there is nothing in it capable of satisfying us.”
Similar indications of his extensive benevolence, and of the high sense he entertained of the dignity of human nature, as well as of the attributes of the Deity, are found every where in his writings; and the “elegant and pious extract” (as it is termed by Dr. Rush, in his Eulogium,) from a letter to one of his friends, quoted in another place, affords a striking instance of the prevalence of that disposition in the towering mind of Rittenhouse.
If “he believed political, as well as moral, evil, to be intruders into the society of men,”353 he was certainly too well acquainted with the moral constitution of man and the evident nature of humanity, to suppose, “that a time would come, when every part of our globe would echo back the heavenly proclamation of universal peace on earth and good will to man.”354 Possessing a most benevolent disposition, he did believe, “that a conduct in this life, depending on our choice, will stamp our characters for ages yet to come.” He was so far from expecting any thing like perfectibility here, that he thought, that man as a free agent, in darkening his faculties by an unworthy application of them here on earth, might “degrade himself to some inferior rank of being,” hereafter; while, on the other hand, by “the exercise of virtue, and a rational employment of those talents we are entrusted with,”—“we shall, in a few years, be promoted to a more exalted rank among the creatures of God—have our understandings greatly enlarged—be enabled to follow Truth in all her labyrinths, with an higher relish and more facility; and thus lay the foundation for an eternal improvement in knowledge and happiness.” Our Philosopher acknowledged, that he was “not one of those sanguine spirits who seem to think, that, when the withered hand of death hath drawn up the curtain of eternity, almost all distance between the creature and the creator, between finite and infinite, will be annihilated.”355 Yet, the Writer of these Memoirs has no hesitation in expressing an opinion, with which a long and intimate acquaintance with Dr. Rittenhouse has forcibly impressed his own mind; that this virtuous man was inclined to believe, or rather, actually did believe, (with the distinguished author of the Dissertation on the Prophecies,)356 in a final restitution of all things to harmony and happiness in another state of existence.
The learned Eulogist of our Philosopher, whom his present biographer has already so often quoted with much interest and pleasure, (although he is, on some points, so unfortunate as to be compelled to dissent from him,) has remarked, that Dr. Rittenhouse “was well acquainted with practical metaphysics.” He had, without doubt, attentively studied those branches, at least, of this science, which embrace moral philosophy, connected, as it is, with a rational system of natural religion: probably, too, he had investigated its more abstruse and less useful departments: and, perhaps, he had also directed his all-inquisitive mind, in some degree, to a contemplation of those mental vagaries of the modern philosophy, as it is termed, which neither subserve the purposes of ethics or of natural theology: a system, if it deserve that appellation, made up of such incongruous materials, such visionary notions, as by their falsity alone, independently of their mischievous operation in society, seem calculated to dishonour the name of philosophy, and to depreciate the highly meritorious services rendered to mankind by the votaries of true science. If, however, Dr. Rittenhouse ever did condescend to employ any considerable portion of his valuable time, in making himself acquainted with the delusive principles of this multifarious sect of pseudo-philosophers, it has been already manifested with what sentiments of disapprobation, if not of abhorrence, he regarded their doctrines.357
It being presumed, therefore, that our Philosopher was, in the words of his Eulogist, “well acquainted with practical metaphysics,” an inference may thence be fairly made, that, with respect to metaphysical deductions, “he could use them,” as has been said of Maclaurin, “with as much subtlety and force as any man living; but”—also like that celebrated philosopher—“he chose rather, in his conversation as well as his writings, to bring the matter to a short issue, in his own way.” Certain it is, however, that Dr. Rittenhouse reprobated, as did his eminent predecessor just named, that subtile, vague and inconclusive kind of ratiocination, the mode of reasoning, in matters of abstract science, from causes to effects,358 which so much characterize that “cobweb philosophy,”359 of which the mass of mere metaphysical systems is made up. Rittenhouse was a practical philosopher: he held in contempt the obscurity of mysticism, in every object of rational enquiry; viewing it as being, always, either the parent or the offspring of error. He loved “sober certainty,”360 in philosophy; and therefore he pursued Truth, in all his scientific researches, in that practical and rational mode of philosophizing, which he deemed conformable to the nature of truth itself, and best adapted to the construction and faculties of the human mind.361
What was the general bias of Dr. Rittenhouse’s opinions on the subject of government, no one who knew him could doubt; and they are likewise deducible, not only from his writings, but from the uniform course of his public and official conduct. He was, in fact, from the dawn of the American controversy with the government of the mother-country to the year 1775, a whig, in his political principles. From the commencement of hostilities in that year, his feelings, as a native of America, prejudiced him strongly against the administration of the British government; and the prejudices thus imbibed, were transferred, soon after, from those men who administered that government—as well as their measures, to the nature and form of the government itself. And finally, on the establishment of the national independence of the United States, in 1776, his opinions settled down, very decidedly, in favour of the governmental system of a representative and elective republic.
But, until the arrival of that important epocha, when thirteen North-American colonies of Great Britain solemnly announced to the world their separation from the parent-state, Rittenhouse thought and acted, in relation to political affairs, pretty much as his countrymen did. “Previous to the American revolution,” as Ramsay the historian has remarked, “the inhabitants of the British colonies were universally loyal:” and another American writer362 of respectability has correspondently observed, that the proceedings of the first congress were “cool, deliberate and loyal, though marked with unanimity and firmness.” Indeed many months elapsed, after the appeal to arms was actually made, before the strong attachment to the mother-country, which the American colonists had always manifested, generally subsided. But, after the middle of the year 1775, “the prejudices in favour of a connexion with England and of the English constitution,” (to use the words of Chief-Justice Marshall,363 “gradually, but rapidly wore off; and were succeeded by republican principles, and wishes for independence.”
Such then, it is confidently believed, was the progress of political sentiments in their operation upon the mind of Rittenhouse, in common with a large majority of the American people.
The information must therefore have been wholly erroneous, upon which Dr. Rush was induced to ground his assertion, that “the year of the declaration of Independence, which changed our royal governments into republics, produced no change in his (Rittenhouse’s) political opinions,—for,” continues the Doctor, “he had been educated a republican by his father.” The very reason which the able and zealous Eulogist has here assigned for Dr. Rittenhouse’s political principles having undergone no change in consequence of the American revolution, being predicated upon an assumed but mistaken fact, it serves to invalidate that allegation; and it would never have been made, had not Dr. Rush been led into the error by misinformation on the subject. Because, those who were personally acquainted with our Philosopher’s father, (Mr. Matthias Rittenhouse,) must well know, that the old gentleman was remarkable for his quiet, unoffending principles and conduct; that he meddled very little, if at all, with public affairs; and that, although a man of good judgment, he had never turned his attention to political controversies or speculations on the science of government. He was in truth a pious man, of great industry, plain manners and unambitious temper; and he uniformly approved himself a peaceable and faithful subject of that monarchy under which he lived seventy-three years, until 1776. On the other hand, the theory of government was a subject upon which the son had, doubtless, thought and read much. It cannot, therefore, be reasonably concluded, that Dr. Rittenhouse was “educated a republican by his father.”
It is asked: “How could he (Rittenhouse) behold the beauty and harmony of the universe as the result of universal and mutual dependance, and not admit that Heaven intended Rulers to be dependant upon those, for whose benefit, alone, all government should exist? To suppose the contrary,” it is added, “would be to deny unity and system in the plans of the great Creator of all things.”364 But, with all due deference to the genius and talents of the highly respectable gentleman here quoted, the writer cannot persuade himself, that our Astronomer could have drawn such inferences as the results of analogical reasoning, from the beauty and harmony of the Universe, as those which the foregoing extract would seem to impute to him. For, who are those, “for whose benefit, alone, all government should exist?” The People: And in such a republic as the United States—where there cannot exist, constitutionally, “a privileged order of men”—the Rulers are, surely, a part of the People. What, then, is the nature of this mutuality of dependence between Rulers and People? If government should exist for the benefit of the People, that is, all the members of the community, as most assuredly it ought to do; then it should be conducted for the benefit of the Rulers, as well as of those who are ruled; the former being a component part of the entire community, under the comprehensive denomination of the People. It is therefore conceived, that, on republican principles, the People and their Rulers cannot be so contradistinguished as separate bodies of men, as that the former, alone, should be dependant on the latter; but that there ought to be between them, as constituting jointly and collectively the People, that “mutual dependance,” of which the ingenious Eulogist speaks: otherwise, a privileged order of men must be considered as actually existing among us. Yet, even in the monarchical republic of Great Britain,365 the business of government is not wholly “limited” to “a privileged order of men:”366 One branch of the legislative body is popular; and one branch, also, of the judicial department of that government, the institution of juries, is purely republican.
The learned professor, here referred to, is nevertheless an highly estimable citizen of the American Republic, as his numerous and important public services fully evince. In his “Address to the People of the United States,” published shortly before the sitting of the Federal Convention, he has pointed out two “errors or prejudices on the subject of government in America, which,” as he very justly observes, “lead to the most dangerous consequences.” The correctness of his sentiments on the subject of those errors, does him honour: such of his observations as are more particularly applicable to the present subject, are contained in the following passages.
“It is often said, that ‘the sovereign power and all other power is seated in the people.’ This idea is unhappily expressed. It should be—‘all power is derived from the people.’ They possess it only on the days of their elections. After this, it is the property of their Rulers; nor can they exercise or resume it, unless it is abused. It is of importance to circulate this idea, as it tends to order and good government.” And again:
“The people of America have mistaken the meaning of the word Sovereignty: hence, each State pretends to be sovereign. In Europe, it is applied only to those states, which possess the power of making war and peace, of forming treaties, and the like. As this power belongs only to Congress, they are the only sovereign power in the United States.”
The Memorialist is persuaded, that Dr. Rittenhouse would have fully concurred in this construction of the nature of sovereignty, in an elective government: and he has been the more diffuse on this subject, in order both to prevent and remove, as much as possible, any misconceptions respecting the political opinions of our Philosopher.
An unostentatious simplicity and strict integrity, with a due proportion of dignity and firmness, in the administration of the public affairs; a judicious economy, in the management and expenditure of the public revenues; a zealous attention to the public interests and the happiness of the people; a wise and faithful administration of justice among the various members of the community, without any invidious distinctions; a strict observance of good faith, in all relations with foreign states; a sincere attachment to peace with its concomitant blessings, and consequently, an abhorrence of unnecessary wars, whether provoked, or undertaken, by means of the cupidity or the ambition of rulers; these have been usually considered, in theory, as characteristics of republican governments. Greatly is it to be desired, that they may always prove to be so, in fact.
That both the Rittenhouses, father and son, should be attached to an order of things in the commonwealth, established and conducted on the principles just mentioned, may be readily conceived from a knowledge of their characters. To a system of civil polity, productive of such substantial benefits to all those under its immediate operation, Dr. Rittenhouse would naturally have been inclined: his habits, manners and principles, would so dispose him. Hence, after having indulged, for a moment, the pleasing but fanciful hypothesis, that if the inhabitants of the other planets resemble man in their faculties and affections; if, like him, they were created liable to fall, though some of them might be presumed to retain their original rectitude; he proceeds with supposing, “that they are wise enough to govern themselves according to the dictates of that reason which God has given them, in such manner as to consult their own and each other’s happiness, upon all occasions. But if, on the contrary,” said he, “they have found it necessary to erect artificial fabrics of government, let us not suppose they have done it with so little skill, and at such an enormous expence, as to render them a misfortune, instead of a blessing. We will hope,” continues the philanthropic Rittenhouse, “that their statesmen are patriots, and that their kings, if that order of beings has found admittance there, have the feelings of humanity.” He next deplores, in terms which evince the strength of his feelings on the occasion, the folly as well as iniquity of holding the Africans in bondage among us; national rapacity; the scourges of war, then recently inflicted on the north of Europe; and, finally, he deprecates in very impressive language, the inroads of “luxury, and her constant follower, tyranny.”367
Dr. Rittenhouse having entertained such sentiments as these, at the time he penned his Oration, and it will be recollected, that this was only two or three months before hostilities had actually taken place between Great-Britain and her North-American Colonies, he was naturally enough induced to believe, that many of the political evils which were, about that period, experienced in civil society by a large portion of mankind, arose from the nature of their respective governments. And, the principal states of Europe, with the exception of the Dutch commonwealth, were then governed under the monarchical form.
In the American continental colonies of Great-Britain, generally, it was the prevalent opinion of the people at the commencement of the revolution, that the grievances complained of by the colonists, originated, almost as a matter of necessity, from the monarchical spirit of the mother-country: consequently, many of those great public evils which sprung from the genius, habits and pursuits, of the people themselves, in the great monarchies of the old world, were generally attributed to some peculiar vices inherent in that species of government. It was the universality, almost, of these opinions; which soon after obtained throughout the United Colonies, that produced a determination in the people to establish, for themselves, republican forms of government, as independent states. Such were accordingly established; and the American people have long experienced their efficiency in promoting the prosperity of the country.
Should it, nevertheless, unfortunately happen at any future period, that the now existing national constitution should, by any means, be perverted from its original design; should a system of government so well planned—“in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;”368 should this well-defined Charter of American freedom, by means of mal-administration or otherwise, eventually frustrate the patriotic intentions of its illustrious framers; then, indeed, will the noblest effort ever made by any people to institute a rational system of free government, blast the best hopes of the advocates of republicanism. In such event—which, may heaven avert! the often quoted couplet would be too fatally verified, wherein the poet says:
“For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate’er is best administer’d, is best.”369
Pope’s Essay on Man.
Dr. Rittenhouse was, undoubtedly, among those who entertained the most sanguine expectations, that the political institutions in the United States, formed as they are according to the republican model, would tend to meliorate the condition of the people, and “promote the general welfare.” He may at some time have even “believed political, as well as moral evil, to be intruders into the society of men.”370 But some passages in his Oration plainly shew, that, as has been already observed, he had no faith in the perfectibility of human reason,371 in this life. He was also too sound a philosopher not to know, that if, by the best rules of philosophical ratiocination, many well known phænomena in the natural world could not be reached, with respect to their nature and causes, in such manner as to render these susceptible of demonstrative proof,—nothing like certainty in the result, much less perfection, could be calculated on, in putting the theories of a science, such as government, to the test of experiment.
If it be asked: ‘Where are the Works of Rittenhouse?’ a ready and satisfactory answer to the question is at hand. Although he published no ponderous volumes, he has left behind him great and honourable memorials of his genius, his science and his skill; such as will long remain, as Monuments of the extraordinary extent of his practical usefulness in his day, and of his well-earned fame. “He has not indeed made a world,” as Mr. Jefferson, in speaking of his Orrery, emphatically expresses himself; “but he has, by imitation, approached nearer its Maker, than any man who has lived from the creation to this day.”372 As long, too, as the geographical boundaries of Pennsylvania, connected in part with those of the neighbouring states, shall continue to define the respective jurisdictions of their local sovereignties and rights, considered as members of a great confederated nation; so long will they serve to distinguish the name of Rittenhouse.373 Nay, some of the rivers and canals, even some principal roads, in the country of his nativity, bear testimony to his talents, his public spirit and his industry. His inventions and improvements, in various specimens of mechanism, conceived and executed by himself, fully manifest, that, “as an artist, he has exhibited as great a proof of mechanical genius as the world has ever produced.”374 And, as a man of extensive and profound science, his various philosophical papers, but more especially those relating to his astronomical observations, justify Mr. Jefferson’s remark, that he was “second to no Astronomer living,”—that he was, “in genius the first, because self-taught.”375
Such, then, were the “Works” of this truly great man. And it appears that they were, in general, not only arduous in their execution, and highly beneficial in their uses and effects; but that they were likewise the productions of a lofty, penetrating and active genius, great knowledge and skill, and the most indefatigable perseverance.376
But though Dr. Rittenhouse published no great systematic literary work, he communicated to others by his conversation, and by such of his writings as have been given to the world, much valuable philosophical information. He instructed, liberally, such persons as were desirous of acquiring knowledge from a social intercourse with him. The elevated station his character maintained, both for wisdom and integrity, exhibited him to his cotemporaries as an example worthy of being imitated:377 and thus, in reality, his high reputation operated as a powerful incitement upon many of his countrymen, to pursue similar objects of science, inspiring them with a taste to cultivate the true philosophy.
The reputation of this distinguished man, as a mathematician and astronomer, was pre-eminently great, in every civilized part of the western world. Perhaps no man’s philosophical talents were ever held in higher estimation, nor more deservedly so, by those qualified to form a proper judgment of them, wherever his name was known; not excepting those of Newton himself. His celebrity was far from being confined within the limits of his native country: his Orrery, with the proceedings and results of the Observation of that phænomenon which so greatly interested the principal astronomers of both hemispheres, the Transit of Venus in 1769, had rendered him justly celebrated in Europe as well as America, as a philosopher of the highest grade, at the age of thirty-seven years.
The peculiar circumstances of his Life, which have been amply detailed in these Memoirs, were of such a nature as to preclude him, in a great measure, from opportunities of carrying on a correspondence with men of science and letters, abroad: the extremely delicate, and oftentimes infirm state of his general health, in addition to his numerous avocations, his long continued, various, and important employments in the public service, left him little leisure for literary pursuits of any kind. Indeed, nothing less than the wonderful energy of his mind, and his extraordinary industry, could have enabled him to write as much as he has done.378
Dr. Rittenhouse never attempted to amuse the world with any hypothetical system of philosophy, or with opinions, merely speculative, on any subject. The great objects of his pursuits, through life, were Certainty and Truth: hence, he never advanced an opinion, concerning any thing whatever, which he did not consider as being either susceptible of verification by experiment and the evidence of our senses, or, where the nature of the subject did not admit of such proof, capable of being tested by the soundest principles of human reason. Yet, though this profound investigator of nature viewed “sober certainty” as the great desideratum in philosophy, he was by no means a dogmatist; even with respect to that portion of natural science which is capable of demonstration. Notwithstanding the opinion he entertained of the vast extent to which the faculties of the mind may be enlarged by a proper improvement of them, he was fully aware that its powers are limited. Like his great predecessor, Maclaurin, “the farther he advanced in the knowledge of geometry and of nature, the greater his aversion grew to perfect systems, hypotheses, and dogmatizing: without peevishly despising the attainments we can arrive at, or the uses to which they serve, he saw there lay infinitely more beyond our reach.” Like him, also, he considered “our highest discoveries as being but a dawn of knowledge, suited to our circumstances and wants in this life; which, however, we ought thankfully to acquiesce in, for the present, in hopes that it will be improved in a happier and more perfect state.”379 Rittenhouse never supposed, that, (to use the words of Maclaurin’s biographer380), “because demonstrative evidence is the most perfect, it should be—as, by some, it has been—taken for granted, there is no other.” On the contrary, our philosopher believed that there are many truths, natural as well as moral, which are beyond the reach of demonstration; consequently, not to be rejected, solely by reason of their insusceptibility of this kind of proof. Hence, in his Oration he says, “Our Religion teaches us what Philosophy could not have taught; and we ought to admire, with reverence, the great things it has pleased Divine Providence to perform, beyond the ordinary course of nature, for man, who is undoubtedly the most noble inhabitant of this globe. But,” continues this truly good man, “neither Religion nor Philosophy forbid us to believe, that infinite Wisdom and Power, prompted by infinite Goodness, may, throughout the vast extent of creation and duration, have frequently interposed in a manner quite incomprehensible to us, when it became necessary to the happiness of created beings of some other rank or degree.”
Such were the pious reflections of a Christian Philosopher; the sublime sentiments of an eminently distinguished Astronomer.
Should it be enquired: What was the system of Philosophy, to which Dr. Rittenhouse adhered? though such a question can scarcely be anticipated, after what has been already said; the answer may be furnished in a few words: He was a thorough and zealous disciple of the Newtonian school. He early embraced, and perseveringly cultivated, “the Philosophy of Newton;” which “disdains to make use of subterfuges,” which “is not reduced to the necessity of using them, because it pretends not to be of nature’s privy council;” while “other systems of philosophy have ever found it necessary to conceal their weakness and inconsistency, under the veil of unintelligible terms and phrases, to which no two mortals perhaps ever affixed the same meaning.”381
With Newton, too, our Philosopher entertained the most exalted conceptions of the Deity. He did not imagine, as his illustrious predecessor was unjustly charged with having done, that infinite space is an attribute of the Deity; that He is present in all parts of space, by diffusion;382 but, like that great man, he did believe, that the Deity endures from eternity to eternity, and is present from infinity to infinity; yet that He is not eternity or infinity, space or duration. For, says Dr. Rittenhouse, “Nothing can better demonstrate the immediate presence of the Deity in every part of space, whether vacant or occupied by matter, than Astronomy does. It was from an Astronomer St. Paul quoted that exalted expression, so often since repeated, ‘In God we live, and move, and have our being.’”383
The terms of profound veneration, in which our Philosopher spoke, on all occasions, of the character of Newton, demonstrate most clearly his complete and undeviating attachment to the Principles of that astonishing man.384 Indeed, he appears to have taken him as his model; and, certainly, he resembled him much, in many points of character. Parallels have often been drawn between distinguished men; and in comparatively a few instances, a strong resemblance has been discovered, in some prominent features of character, between two or more persons. Yet the infinite variety of talent, that appears throughout the human race; the almost incredible difference in the grades of intellectual endowment, distinguishing the sons of men from each other; and the adventitious circumstances peculiar to each individual, which either direct or controul his conduct, and seem to mark his destiny in life; all these, taken together, produce such an endless diversity of character in the species, as to render it impracticable, if not absolutely impossible, to find any two men who greatly resemble each other in many particulars.
There are, nevertheless, so many circumstances founded on natural causes, that indicate an extraordinary similitude in the genius, disposition and principles of Rittenhouse, and his great Prototype; so many, moreover, of a singular nature, connected with events purely adventitious, wherein the condition, occupations and pursuits of these philosophers, with other eventual relations depending wholly on accident, resembled each other; that an interesting parallel, between them, might be attempted with no inconsiderable share of success.
In the course of these Memoirs, the Biographer of Rittenhouse has endeavoured to furnish a faithful representation of the Philosopher and of the Man. He was desirous of delineating his true character, in both points of view; that the world may be enabled to make a just estimate of the genius, the principles, and the conduct of a person, so celebrated in name. But, in order that the more correct judgment might be formed of his virtues and talents, and of the services he has rendered to society, it became necessary to describe the sphere in which he moved; so far, at least, as to present to view occasional sketches of the complexion of the Times in which he lived, and of some of the more prominent Characters who were his compatriots. The Memorialist has therefore conveyed to the mind of his reader some idea of the moral, political, and literary state of society, more particularly in the country of our Philosopher’s residence, within the same period. This rendered it proper to notice the rise, nature, and progress of certain Institutions, upon which science and the arts, with many of the benefits of civil polity, greatly depend; such as tend to diffuse useful knowledge throughout the community, to promote the general weal, and to meliorate the condition of the great family of mankind.
It has been already observed, that every individual in society is more or less closely connected with it, in various ways: and it is obvious, that an eminent citizen, one, especially, standing in relations of a public nature in the community of which he is a member, usually has his history and character so interwoven with those of his own times, that it is difficult to understand the former thoroughly, without possessing a competent knowledge of the latter. The Life of such a man as Rittenhouse could not, therefore, in many respects, be either well comprehended or duly estimated, unless there had been connected with it some account of men and things, to which his private pursuits and public employments were, directly or indirectly, related.
In whatever light, then, a retrospective view of Dr. Rittenhouse’s character may be taken, it will be found to present a model worthy of imitation. The mild and amiable virtues of domestic life, and similar dispositions in the intercourses of private society, decorated his whole deportment, as a man and as a citizen; the more stern qualities of the patriot equally distinguished him as the friend of his native country, in all his public relations; while the principles of genuine philanthrophy impressed his heart with feelings of the most extended benevolence. In all these respects, nevertheless, some have equalled, though few, if any, have surpassed him. But when, united to virtues and dispositions, such as these, the powerful genius, the extensive philosophical talents and attainments, the self-acquired and extraordinary mechanical skill of Dr. Rittenhouse, shall also have been considered; it will be acknowledged, that the Memoirs of his Life, commemorate a Man truly great. They recal to his surviving countrymen, and to their posterity, a remembrance of his excellence and usefulness; presenting to them such a specimen of worth and abilities, as is highly deserving of being emulated. At the same time, they exhibit to the world a faithful portrait of a Man, whose character had early acquired the well-earned respect of the wise and good in other nations. During his life, the name of Rittenhouse received due homage from some of the most illustrious Philosophers of Europe. In his own country, that name cannot cease to be venerated, so long as genius, science, and virtue, shall be held in the high estimation to which they are entitled.
It has been observed by a noble author385 of the present day, “that the decline of public spirit in matters of Taste, is a certain indication of political decay.” To whatever degree the justness of this observation may extend, it will apply still more forcibly to any country, wherein a disregard, consequently a declension of learning, science and moral virtue, is perceived. Rittenhouse lived in an eventful age. During a long period of his life, he witnessed a comparative simplicity of manners and much integrity of character, among his countrymen. He beheld a progressive course of useful knowledge, and an advance in those arts and refinements of polished society, which minister as well to the rational enjoyments as to the conveniences of human life; and these he saw accompanied by almost every species of public improvements, promoted by the liberal spirit of the people and fostered by the benign genius of the government. Our Philosopher himself, one-and-twenty years before his death, in speaking of the rapid progress his countrymen had then made in almost every species of social refinements, made this remark: “We have made most surprising, I had almost said unnatural, advances towards the meridian of glory.”386 But this good man dreaded even at that time, what he always most earnestly deprecated, that Luxury would, ere long, follow in the train of an highly cultivated state of manners and too sumptuous a style of living: for, he considered an excess of such refinements as leading to that depravity of morals which often accompanies “Luxury,” and, as he has expressed it, “her constant follower, Tyranny.”
The gloomy anticipations, which he sometimes entertained, of a future depression of the interests of learning in his native country, from such causes, he lived not to see realized. There is, indeed, ground on which a reasonable hope may be founded, that, notwithstanding the operation of some inauspicious circumstances, in these times, occasioned by the present distracted state of the political world, literature, science and the arts, will yet be successfully cultivated in the United States of America. Dr. Rittenhouse had the good fortune to live in an age when virtue and talents were honoured; when abilities to serve the country, and an honest attachment to its best interests, were the surest passports to the public confidence and esteem. In the latter years of his life, it was a source of great gratification to him to know that his country was prosperous; it being then in the full enjoyment of all the arts of peace, and other blessings of a well-ordered society. He was greatly respected and esteemed by his illustrious compatriot, Washington; whose magnanimity taught him to spurn with disdain all petty considerations, arising from such mere difference of opinion in the speculations of politics, as could neither undermine the principles of a Patriot, nor affect the fidelity of an honest Man. Very many distinguished men, besides, were his contemporaries; and by persons of this description, almost universally, as well as by all his countrymen of every class, to whom his person or character was known, he was held in the highest estimation: indeed, few men ever enjoyed a larger share of the public regard.
Some years after the decease of Dr. Rittenhouse, it was judged expedient to transfer his perishable remains from their first place of sepulture, to another: they were accordingly removed; and interred in the cemetery adjoining the Presbyterian church in Pine-street, Philadelphia, near the body of his son-in-law, Mr. Sergeant. The grave of the celebrated American Astronomer is enclosed, under a plain slab of marble, thus inscribed:
IN MEMORY OF
DAVID RITTENHOUSE,
BORN APRIL 8th, 1732,
DIED JUNE 26th; 1796;
AND
HANNAH RITTENHOUSE,
HIS WIFE,
Who died October 15th,
1799,
Aged 64 years.
But, although no costly tomb contains the ashes of this eminently-distinguished Man; although no sculptured cenotaph, in any part of his country, blazons his genius or records his fame; and notwithstanding the chisel of the statuary has never been employed in obedience to the public voice, to produce a permanent resemblance of his countenance and figure; yet a monument of more durable nature than any of these, consecrates his virtues, his talents, and his usefulness. A grateful remembrance of his modest worth is enshrined in the hearts of the wise and the good of his own age and country; and the name of David Rittenhouse will be every where perpetuated with veneration and renown, among the sons of science and the benefactors of mankind.
In like manner, though the writings of Dr. Rittenhouse are neither numerous nor extensive, some of his works are, nevertheless, so excellent and admirable in their nature, they exhibit such proofs of transcendent genius, that they will immortalize his name. And, as Cotes was prematurely taken away by death, or, as expressed in his epitaph,
“Immaturâ Morte præreptus;”—
so, the actual term of Rittenhouse’s life may be considered as having been much shortened by sickness. Franklin, who lived twenty years longer than our astronomer, published little in philosophy; yet this circumstance does not derogate from his claims to the character of a philosopher.
| 6.h | 39′. | 1″,25 | Annulus completed | |||||
| April 3d. | 6. | 43. | 15,25 | Do. broken | M. Time. | |||
| 7. | 55. | 37,75 | End of Eclipse. |
A letter from the celebrated French Astronomer, Lalande, to Dr. Rittenhouse, on the same subject, has been already given.
Instances, however, of this kind of mania, are known to have existed; produced by that presumptuous pride, which is too often engendered by a sophistication of true philosophy with the wild fantasies of some modern metaphysical sects, affecting extraordinary illumination. By thus engrafting a bad scion upon a good stock, pernicious fruit is propagated: or, to drop metaphorical allusions, by attempting to blend into one system, principles so discordant in their nature, as those of the experimental philosopher and the visionary theorist who deals in abstract speculations and reasonings â priori, the appropriate powers of the mind are weakened, while its moral faculty is at the same time, and by the same means, greatly deteriorated.
An extraordinary but deplorable instance of this kind was exhibited to the world by the justly celebrated astronomer Lalande, in his own conduct and character, towards the concluding part of a long life. These are so well portrayed in the very interesting Letters on France and England, published in The American Review of History and Politicks, that the writer of the present memoirs cannot forbear presenting to his reader the following extract from Letter III.
“Lalande, if not the most profound and original, was certainly the most learned astronomer of France, and the principal benefactor of the science to which he was so passionately devoted. He was remarkable for the most egregious vanity, and for the broadest eccentricities of character, and almost equally eminent for the most noble virtues of the heart. By a very singular perversion of intellect, he became a professed atheist, about the commencement of the revolution; pronounced, in the year 1793, in the Pantheon, a discourse against the existence of a God, with the red cap upon his head; and displayed, on this subject, the most absolute insanity, during the rest of his life. This monstrous infatuation betrayed him into the most whimsical acts of extravagance, and particularly into the publication of a Dictionary of Atheists, in which he enregistered not only many of “the illustrious dead,” but a great number of his cotemporaries, and among these, some of the principal dignitaries of the empire.
“This circumstance led to an occurrence in the Institute, which that body will not soon forget. At an extraordinary sitting of all the classes, convoked for the purpose, when Lalande was present, a letter from the Emperor was announced and read aloud, in which it was declared, that Mr. Lalande had fallen into a state of dotage, and was forbidden to publish, thereafter, any thing under his own name. The old astronomer rose very solemnly, bowed low, and replied, that he would certainly obey the orders of his majesty. His atheistical absurdities deserved, no doubt, to be repressed; but, besides the singularity of this form of interdiction, there was an unnecessary degree of severity in it, as the end might have been attained without so public a humiliation. Lalande was notoriously superannuated, and not therefore a fit object for this species of punishment. Some consideration, moreover, was due to his many private virtues, to his rank in the scientific world, and to the large additions which he had made to the stock of human knowledge. His atheistical opinions arose, not from any moral depravity, but from a positive alienation of mind on religious topics. He was not the less conspicuous for the most disinterested generosity; for warm feelings of humanity; for the gentleness of his manners; for the soundness of his opinions on questions of science, and for a certain magnanimity with regard to the merits of his rivals and detractors. The extravagance of his opinions and his manners during his dotage, rendered him an object of almost universal derision in Paris, and subjected him to the most cruel and indecent mockery. It became fashionable, even among those who had derived their knowledge from his lessons and experienced his bounty, to depreciate his merits both as an astronomer and as a man. Lalande had the misfortune of living to see a maxim verified in his own regard, which has been exemplified in every age and country, that some disciples may become superiour to their masters. But he was, nevertheless, at all times among the luminaries of science; and to him astronomy was indebted for more substantial and unremitted services, than to any one of his cotemporaries.”
This very Mr. Lalande, in the preface to the third edition of his inestimable work entitled Astronomie, published at Paris so late as the year 1792, shews, that astronomy furnishes most powerful proofs of the being of a God. Yet this same man, in one year after, when in his “dotage,” with a mind enfeebled by age, and corrupted by the delusions of the new philosophy of his countrymen, became an object of “derision,” and of “mockery,” even among Frenchmen; for his absurdities, and his endeavours to set himself up as a champion of atheism! Is it necessary to furnish the rational part of mankind with a more striking, and at the same time a more lamentable proof, of the deleterious effects produced by those illusions, which, under the assumed name of “Philosophy,” have been conjured up by some modern Theorists and Political Speculators? Certainly, it is not. The instance, here adduced, may stand as a monument of the folly and depravity of the Philosophy of the Gallican School.
“Unthought-of frailties cheat us in the wise,”—
says; “Who could imagine that Locke was fond of romances; that Newton once studied astrology; that Dr. Clarke valued himself for his agility, and frequently amused himself, in a private room of his house, in leaping over the tables and chairs; and that our author himself (Mr Pope) was a great epicure.”
In our own country, the sage Franklin abounded in anecdote and humour, and thought it not unwise to recreate his mind, at times, with the game of chess: the conversation of Judge Hopkinson was replete with sprightly wit, and he admired well written novels of no immoral tendency; as did also the late Judge Wilson: the illustrious Washington, in his earlier years, enjoyed the pleasures of the festive board, in the society of men of understanding and worth: and no man delighted more in cheerful conversation, and in reading works of fancy and taste, than the philosophic Rittenhouse. The almost universal tendency, in persons of all classes, to an occasional playfulness of temper, even in cases which may sometimes be considered as bordering on weakness, has given the force of a maxim to the observation of the latinists—Nemo omnibus horis sapit. Indeed, as a biographer of the celebrated Dr. Clarke has remarked, “to be capable of drawing amusement from trivial circumstances, indicates a heart at ease, and may generally be regarded as the concomitant of virtue.”
In no instance have the impious and absurd doctrines of the “Philosophists” and the “Illuminati,” of our times, been carried to such a height of extravagance, as by the revolutionists of modern France. These infatuated people undertook, in the year 1793, to abolish by Law, a Futurity of Existence; having then decreed, that no such state existed! They also decreed, that in every cemetery there should be erected a figure representing Sleep, pointing towards the tombs; and this Sleep of Death, the decree declared to be eternal!! It is to this sort of wickedness and folly that an allusion is made, in the foregoing quotation; as well as in the following lines, copied from the Pursuits of Literature:
“Systems which laugh to scorn th’avenging rod,
And hurl defiance at the throne of God;
Shake pestilence abroad with madd’ning sweep,
And grant no pause—but everlasting Sleep!”
The following observation, in the form of a note, is referred to, from the lines above quoted, in a work which contains that extract, viz. “Those, who, from the effects in this visible world, deduce the eternal power and Godhead of the first cause, though they cannot attain to an adequate idea of the Deity, yet discover so much of him, as enables them to see the end of their creation and the means of their happiness: whereas they who take “the high priori road,” as Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, and some better reasoners, for one that goes right, ten lose themselves in “mists,” or ramble after visions, which deprive them of all sight of their end, and mislead them in the choice of wrong means.”
Mr. Pope had put the above poetical lines into the mouth of one of his Dunces, when addressing himself to the goddess Dullness. And as the great Dr. Samuel Clarke had previously endeavoured to shew,358a that the Being of a God may be demonstrated by arguments deduced â priori, the Doctor conceived himself to be struck at, among those “better reasoners” alluded to, in the note above mentioned.
Notes
302. Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt.
303. “Astronomy, like the Christian religion, if you will allow me the comparison,” said our philosopher, “has a much greater influence on our knowledge in general, and perhaps on our manners too, than is commonly imagined. Though but few men are its particular votaries, yet the Light it affords is universally diffused among us; and it is difficult for us to divest ourselves of its influence so far, as to frame any competent idea of what would be our situation without it.” See Ritt. Orat.
In another part of his Oration is this passage—“Our Religion teaches us what Philosophy could not have taught: and we ought to admire, with reverence, the great things it has pleased Divine Providence to perform, beyond the ordinary course of nature, for man, who is, undoubtedly, the most noble inhabitant of this globe,” &c.
And in addition to these sentiments, uttered and published by our philosopher himself, let the testimony of Dr. Rush, who had long and intimately known him, be quoted, from the learned professor’s Eulogium: “He believed in the Christian Revelation,” says the Doctor; and then subjoins—“Of this he gave many proofs; not only in the conformity of his life to the precepts of the Gospel, but in his letters and conversation.”
304. Equivalent to 36,066⅔ American or Spanish dollars.
305. The elder of these ladies became, in the year 1788, the second wife of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant, Esq. late an eminent lawyer in Philadelphia, and sometime attorney-general of Pennsylvania. This gentleman was one of the five persons delegated, on the 20th of February, 1776, by the convention of New-Jersey (where he then resided,) to represent that colony in congress: his colleagues were, the late governor Livingston, and John de Hart, Richard Smith, and John Cooper, Esquires. Mr. Sergeant died of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, on the 8th of October, 1793; after having been many weeks actively and benevolently employed, with a few other gentlemen of humanity, in the prosecution of such measures, as the sufferings of those of the citizens who had not fled, and the general welfare of the city required, at that calamitous period. He left issue a son and two daughters, by this marriage, besides several children by his first wife.
The other daughter of Dr. Rittenhouse was married in the year 1790, to Nicholas Baker Waters, M. D. of Philadelphia, a young physician of respectable talents and amiable disposition. Dr. Waters died of a pulmonary disease, in August, 1794, at a very early age, leaving one son, an only child.
Dr. Rittenhouse named his second daughter, Esther, in compliment to his sister Barton. In a letter to the Rev. Mr. Barton, written on the occasion of the birth of this younger child, he says—“To me, it is a matter of indifference, but to my Eleanor it was a great disappointment, to have a girl, having promised herself a boy; and it had long since been resolved that this child, if a son, should be called Thomas, after yourself.” The eldest daughter was named Elizabeth, after his own mother.
306. Dr. Rush has very beautifully expressed the same sentiment, in a passage of his Eulogium on our philosopher. After remarking, that his bodily infirmities “contributed much to the perfection of his virtue, by producing habitual patience and resignation to the will of heaven, and a constant eye to the hour of his dissolution,” he says: “It was a window through which he often looked with pleasure towards a place of existence, where, from the increase and perfection of his intuitive faculties, he would probably acquire more knowledge in an hour, than he had acquired in his whole life, by the slow operations of reason; and where, from the greater magnitude and extent of the objects of his contemplation, his native globe would appear like his cradle, and all the events of time, like the amusements of his infant years.” Such, too, must have been the ideas, impressed on the mind of Rittenhouse himself, when, in the morning of his life, he imagined the angel Gabriel looking down from the seat of perfect knowledge, and viewing, benignly, far from beholding with a smile of contempt, the efforts of Newton, to demonstrate the actual motion of our earth. W. B.
307. See Eulog. on Ritt.
308. About twenty-six years and an half.—Dr. Franklin was President from the institution of the society, in Jan. 1769, until his death, on the 17th of April, 1790; and Dr. Rittenhouse, who succeeded him in Jan. 1791, continued in the office until he died, the 26th of June, 1796. W. B.
309. See Mr. Malone’s Account of the Life and Writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds, prefixed to the works of Sir Joshua.
310. See Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt.
311. “His manners were civil and engaging, to such a degree, that he seldom passed an hour, even in a public house in travelling through our country, without being followed by the good wishes of all who attended upon him.” Rush’s Eulogium on Ritt.
312. Dr. Rittenhouse’s brother Benjamin, in a written communication made to the writer of these memoirs in the year 1796, observes, that the Doctor, “when in health, was cheerful; and his passions, unless they were excited by the abuses and knavery of men, either in public or private life, were moderate: but where he conceived that the interest or liberties of his country were endangered, he would, on those occasions, express himself with great warmth and asperity.”
313. See his Oration.
314. It was publicly declared by the same acrimonious writer who charged Dr. Rittenhouse with being an atheist, (namely, Mr. William Cobbett,) and with an equal disregard of truth, as has been already shewn, that the Doctor signed “the inflammatory Resolutions” of the Democratic Society against the Excise-law, which, as he alleged, produced the Western Insurrection in Pennsylvania, in the year 1794. Dr. Rittenhouse, it is well known, did not even attend the meetings of that society. This is admitted by Mr. Cobbett himself, in the following invidious paragraph, extracted from a pamphlet written and published by the late William L. Smith, Esq. of South-Carolina, and republished by Cobbett in his own works: it is in these words—“Rittenhouse was a great philosopher; but the only proof we have had of his political talents, was, his suffering himself to be wheedled into the presidency of the democratic society of Philadelphia; a society with which he was even ashamed to associate, though cajoled and flattered into the loan of his name.”
315. The memorialist cannot deprive himself of the gratification of introducing, on the present occasion, a little anecdote communicated to him by his friend, Francis Johnston, Esq. characteristic of our philosopher’s amiable simplicity and benevolent disposition. Circumstances as unimportant in themselves, as the one here related, sometimes make us acquainted with the true character of individuals.
Colonel Johnston, who was bred a scholar, and held with reputation the rank of a colonel in the American service in the war of the revolution, was, at an early period of his life, a zealous admirer of the character of Rittenhouse. But long afterwards, and while the Doctor officiated as state-treasurer, that gentleman held the next great office in the financial department of the state. The connexion of those offices occasioned almost daily visits from the colonel to the state-treasury, and intercourse with the treasurer himself; and this produced a reciprocal friendship between the two gentlemen. “For a time,” says Col. Johnston, “Dr. Rittenhouse managed the business of his office with the utmost attention and assiduity: but his all-capacious mind could no longer be restrained from its native pursuits; his money and his counter, therefore, he resigned into the hands of his beloved wife, who, although possessed of all the feminine virtues, performed the arduous duties of the office with a masculine understanding, with accuracy and unwearied attention.”
“My intimacy with Dr. Rittenhouse,” continues the colonel, “introduced between us a concern in some property, in the western part of the city, which often induced us to walk out together, to visit it. That part of the property which laid on the main street, belonged to me; and being more exposed to the depredations of the disorderly people who then inhabited that neighbourhood, was consequently often injured in the fences or board-inclosures. More than once, I have seen this philosopher, who never thought it any degradation of philosophy, to bow at the shrine of friendship, marching along my line of fence, and most industriously, and in a most masterly manner, with his own hammer and nails, mending or repairing the same.”
“This anecdote I mention thus particularly,” adds the worthy colonel, “with a view of shewing, that in addition to Dr. Rittenhouse’s other virtues, humanity and friendship were leading traits in his excellent character.”
316. In expressing his admiration of “that dispositions of lands and seas, which affords a communication between distant regions, and a mutual exchange of benefits,” Dr. Rittenhouse unquestionably had in view a commercial, as well as social, intercourse between the inhabitants of different climes: he was too enlightened a man, not to have been aware of its “benefits.” “A civilized nation, without commerce,” (as the writer of these memoirs had occasion to observe in a former publication,316a) “is a solecism in politics. It is in the rudest state of mankind, only, that a people can exist, without any communication with other societies or commercial intercourse among themselves, every one supporting himself by his own labour. Indeed, so absolute a state of nature can only be conceived; but has scarcely existed in reality. The wants, the fears, the weakness, nay the very nature of man, constitute him a social animal: and, in the very origin of society, their mutual necessities, with the various talents, means, and opportunities of individuals for supporting them, must have produced a reciprocity of services, and an occasional interchange with one another of that property, which each had acquired by his own exertions.”
316a. The true interest of the United States, and particularly of Pennsylvania, considered: published in 1786.
317. See his Oration.
318. In the year 1756, he made an eight-day clock, for his brother-in-law, Mr. Barton; over the dial-plate of which, was engraven this mementory motto—Tempus fugit; and underneath, this blunt but too often necessary precept—Go about your business.
On one description of the continental bills of credit, issued by congress during the American war, were represented a sundial and a meridian sun over it: above, the word “Fugio;” and beneath, these words—“Mind your Business.” And on the reverse of a copper one cent piece, struck in the year 1787, in pursuance of a resolve of congress of the 6th of July in that year, are impressed the same device and mottoes as those last mentioned; corresponding with those adopted by our Philosopher, when only twenty-four years of age: a circumstance that shews, how early in life he had formed a just estimate of the value of time.
It may not be improper here to observe, that the various devices affixed to the continental money, as it was called, were much admired for their appropriate significancy; and that they were generally supposed to be the production of the late ingenious Judge Hopkinson, an intimate friend of Mr. Rittenhouse.
319. See Eulog. on Ritt.
320. An eulogy of this great astronomer, celebrated for his discovery of the aberration and nutation, will be found in the History of the French Academy, for the year 1762. He was born in 1692; and died at Greenwich, in 1762, at the age of seventy years.
321. See the Memorial of the Society to the General Assembly, dated the 6th of March, 1775; introduced in the foregoing pages.
322. Observatories are indispensably necessary to the cultivation of astronomical science. There are many celebrated institutions of this kind, in various parts of Europe; and of these, the British isles may justly boast of possessing a large proportion in number, admirably fitted up with all the necessary apparatus. Some account of these will be found in other parts of this work.
Besides the liberal and honourable provision made for eminent astronomers in Great-Britain, many of the most distinguished men of the same class, on the continent of Europe, have experienced the bounty of their respective princes and states. Such, among others, were the celebrated C. Mayer, Astronomer to the Elector Palatine and duke of Bavaria, at Manheim; Zach, Astronomer to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, at Gotha; and Lalande, Professor of Astronomy and Inspector of the College of France, at Paris. These great philosophers have had splendid astronomical establishments provided for them, by their sovereigns; as is more particularly noticed in other parts of these memoirs. And the extensive work of Mr. de Zach, entitled, Tabulæ Motuum Solis novæ et correctæ, &c. (a large quarto volume in the Latin language,) was printed under the patronage and at the expense of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, in the year 1792, and distributed gratis among many of the learned of the old and new world; an example of munificence worthy of imitation by all sovereign princes and states, who know how to estimate, as they deserve, such importantly useful productions of men eminent in science.
The time, in which the transcendent talents of such philosophers as have been here named, was employed, together with the products of their labours, were rightfully, under such patronage, the property of the public; while the time of our astronomer was with equal justice his own, and consequently the fruits of his time, genius, and labour, were, at least primarily, due to himself and his family.
323. The famous English Observatory near Greenwich Hospital, and in the immediate vicinity of the town of Greenwich in Kent, (erected, on a commanding eminence one hundred and sixty feet above the level of the river Thames, in the year 1676, by order of King Charles II.) is still called Flamstead-House; Mr. Flamstead having been the first person appointed Regius Professor there.
324. It is said of the celebrated Roger Cotes, by his friend and patron, the learned Dr. Richard Bentley, in his inscription upon the tomb of that great philosopher, at Cambridge, that—
“Pauca quidem Ingenii sui pignora reliquit,
Sed egregia, sed admiranda:”
325. A second edition of the first volume was published in the year 1789, in consequence of the extraordinary demand for that book, by reason of the very important papers respecting the Transit of Venus, contained in it.
326. Some further remarks respecting this comet, than those contained in Dr. Rittenhouse’s communication, here referred to, will be found in an extract which has already been given, of his letter to the Rev. Mr. Barton, under the date of July 30, 1770.
327. Mr. Francis de Zach (Astronomer to the duke of Saxe-Gotha,) in the explanation and use of his table, No. 38, entitled, “Correctio horæ meridianæ prodeuntis ex altitudinibus correspondentibus Solis,” says—“Tradit Clarissimus Dav. Rittenhouse, in Transactionibus Americanis (vol. 1. p. 155. edit. 2.), Methodum novum correctionis horæ meridianæ, absque tabulis, ex solâ observatione deducendæ; sed requiruntur, ad hoc, duorum dierum subsequentium altitudines quatuor æquales: id est, sub eadem altitudine manè et vesperi factæ, ad assequendam ex his, correctiones meridiei, Regulæ Clariss. Authoris sunt sequentes:” Mr. de Zach then lays down Dr. Rittenhouse’s Rules, which will be found in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, already referred to; and adds—“Exempla hoc perspicuum reddent:” he next states two examples, from which he deduces proofs of the accuracy of Dr. Rittenhouse’s method. See “Tabulæ Motuum Solis, novæ et correctæ, ex Theoriâ Gravitatis et Observationibus recentissimis erutæ, &c. auctore Francisco de Zach:” printed at Gotha, in 1792.
328. This Comet was observed by John Lukens, Esq. of Philadelphia, on the 20th of January, 1784. This respectable practical astronomer communicated his discovery of it to Dr. Rittenhouse the next day, on the evening of which, (“assisted by Mr. Lukens and Mr. Prior,”) he ascertained the then apparent place of this comet. Dr. Rittenhouse’s communication to the society, on this subject, gives also the apparent place of the comet on the 17th of February, being the last time the weather permitted him to see it: the result of his intermediate observations is also stated.
329. These observations were made in Philadelphia, by Dr. Rittenhouse, at sundry times in the years 1784, 1785, and 1786, on the new planet, or Georgium Sidus; and on the Transit of Mercury over the Sun’s disk, on the 12th of November, 1782. The same communication also states the geocentric places of the Georgium Sidus, at several different dates between the 1st of April, 1762, and the 14th of March, 1784, both included; as observed by Mr. James Six, at the city of Canterbury in England.
330. This eclipse was observed by Andrew Ellicott, Esq. at the city of Washington, as follows; viz.
331. In this letter, Dr. Rittenhouse merely informs Mr. Patterson, in general terms, of the time when he first observed this comet, its then place, and its course through several of the constellations, until the 8th of February; on the evening of which day, he saw it for the last time. It is presumed that Dr. Rittenhouse’s state of health, at that period, would not admit of his making more definite observations on this comet.
332. This desideratum in astronomical science had long engaged Dr. Rittenhouse’s attention; and it is confidently said by one of his intimate friends, that, in the latter part of his life, he had actually written much on the subject of Pendulums; intended, probably, for publication. But, unfortunately, the manuscript-book, which contained what he had thus written, can not now be found.
In the paper mentioned in the text, he remarks, that “the invention and construction of time-keepers may be reckoned among the most successful exertions of human genius. Pendulum-clocks especially,” says he, “have been made to measure time with astonishing accuracy; and, if there are still some causes of inequality in their motions, the united efforts of mechanism, philosophy and mathematics, will probably, in time, remove them.”
Indeed no man has done more, none perhaps so much, towards removing the imperfections in chronometers, to which he alludes, as this great mechanician himself. His admirable time-piece, now in the possession of the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, constructed by him, on an improved plan of his own, affords ample proof of the “astonishing accuracy” (as he expresses it) to which the pendulum-chronometer may be brought. A description of the mechanism of this extremely accurate time-piece, as well as of the principles on which its superior correctness depends, is inserted in the Appendix.
333. The appropriate location of “The American Philosophical Society” is the city of “Philadelphia,” where their meetings must be held in conformity to their charter. Monticello, Mr. Jefferson’s residence in Virginia, is situated at the distance of about two hundred and seventy miles from the capital of Pennsylvania.
334. It is difficult for a sound and contemplative mind to form any conception of the character of a philosopher, according to the true meaning of the term, more especially of an astronomer, of a man observant of the works of nature and acquainted with her laws; and yet wanting in a due sense of religion. And hence Dr. Young has declared, that—
“An undevout Philosopher is mad.”
335. “If,” (says a late anonymous writer,) “from the advantages of sound learning to the state, we turn to its influence on the characters of individuals, we will find its effects to be no less striking. We will find, that although, without much learning, man may become useful and respectable, yet that he cannot, without it, become polished, enlightened and great; he cannot ascend to that grade in the scale of his Creator’s works, to which his powers are intended to exalt him. If to this rule, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse, and a Washington present exceptions, they are to regarded as mere exceptions, and therefore do not amount to an infraction of the rule. They were prodigies; which necessarily implies a departure from, and an ascendency over common principles.” See an Account of Dickinson College, Carlisle, in the Port Folio, for March, 1811; supposed to be written by Professor Cooper.
336. Three years before Dr. Rush expressed these opinions, so generally unfavourable to classical learning and an academic education, he seems to have thought these necessary qualifications for a physician at least. In his Lecture on the Character of Dr. Sydenham, delivered in Dec. 1793, is this passage: “From the short records of his life, which have been published by the different editors of his works, it appears that his education in academical learning and medicine, was perfectly regular. He became a scholar at Oxford, and a doctor of medicine at the university of Cambridge. I mention these facts,” adds our learned Professor, “in order to refute an opinion which has been introduced by some lazy and illiterate practitioners of physic, that he was indebted wholly to intuition for all his knowledge of medicine. Men may become wise and distinguished by meditation or observation, in the science of morals and religion; but education and study are absolutely necessary to constitute a great physician.”
With all due deference to the abilities and judgment of the Professor, the Memorialist presumes, that if “education and study are absolutely necessary to constitute a great physician,” they are equally requisite in the formation of a great astronomer: because a knowledge of geometry and optics can no more be attained by intuition, than that of anatomy and the materia medica; yet these sciences are, respectively, indispensable in the formation of the two characters, to which they severally relate.
Still, adds Dr. Rush, “It is true Dr. Sydenham did not adopt, or follow, the errors of the schools in which he had been educated; but, by knowing them thoroughly, he was able, more easily, to examine and refute them.” Here, then, is an admission, that even an intimate knowledge of such errors is eminently useful, by enabling a man of a sound and cultivated mind to refute them: for, the refutation of existing errors, affords a most important aid to the advancement of true science.
Sydenham, it appears, received his collegiate education at both the English universities. It may not therefore be improper, on this occasion, to introduce a quotation from an invaluable elementary work;336a in order to shew, what was the opinion entertained by a learned and distinguished German, of the English Universities—on the models of which, the higher seminaries of learning in the United States are formed. “Of all the Universities of Europe,” says Baron Bielfeld, “those of Oxford and Cambridge in England appear at present to approach the nearest to perfection: The great men they produce, are a better proof than any other argument.336b We could wish,” adds this highly enlightened foreigner, “always to see an university a real city of learning, a place consecrated entirely to the muses and their disciples; that the Greek and Latin languages were there predominant; and that every thing were banished from thence, which could cause the least dissipation in those who devote themselves to letters.” “The man who confines himself to his closet,”—says our author, in another place,—“is but rarely visited by the sciences, the arts and the belles lettres: to acquire their intimate acquaintance, he must seek them in those places where Minerva, Pallas, Apollo, and the Muses, have fixed their residence. Emulation, that strong impulse in the career of all our pursuits, should constantly attend the man of letters from his early youth to the last period of his life; in the school, at college, at the university, in those employments to which his knowledge may lead him, or in those academies of science to which he may be admitted. Emulation is an animating faculty, that results from society: and few there are, to whom nature has given a genius sufficiently strong to attain an extensive erudition in solitude; who are provided with wings that can bear them, without guides, without models, without companions or supports, to the lofty regions of the empyrean.”
336a. The Elements of Universal Erudition, containing an analytical abridgment of the Sciences, Polite Arts, and Belles Lettres; by Baron Bielfeld. In three 8vo. volumes; translated from a Berlin edition, by W. Hooper, M. D. and printed in London, in the year 1770.
336b. The three great Universities of England and Ireland enjoy the right, in addition to many other important privileges, of sending, each, two members to represent them in parliament, Would to heaven! that there were something like a representation of the interests of learning and science, in the legislative bodies of our own country.
337. Bacon (the celebrated Viscount of St. Albans and Baron of Verulam) published his great philosophical work, the Novum Organum, in the year 1620. The learned and sagacious professor Cooper remarks, that “Lord Bacon” (whom the honourable Mr. Walpole considers as the Prophet of the Arts, which Newton came to reveal,) “was the first among the moderns, who pointed out the way by which real knowledge was to be obtained, and turned the minds of the learned from playing tricks with syllogisms, and the legerdemain of words without ideas; and taught them to rest theory upon the basis of experiment alone.” See the Introductory Lecture of Thomas Cooper, Esq. Professor of Chemistry at Carlisle College, Pennsylvania.
338. The Greek and Latin are called by way of pre-eminence, the learned languages. Baron Bielfeld enumerates the advantages resulting from a knowledge of the former; among which he notices that important one, of its enabling us more readily and clearly to comprehend the meaning of that almost boundless list of terms in the arts and sciences, used in modern languages and styled technical, which are either altogether Grecian, or derived from that language. He then makes this remark: “From all that has been said, it is apparent how much utility attends the study of the Greek tongue; and how much reason the English have, for applying themselves to it, from their early youth.” “But,” observes this learned and discriminating writer, “that which has given the Latin an advantage over the Greek itself, that has rendered it indispensable to every man of letters, and has made it the basis of erudition, is, that during the middle age, and in general in all modern times, the learned of all Europe have made it their common and universal language; so that the Latin forms, if we may use the expression, the natural language of the sciences.” Elem. of Univ. Erud.
339. Although Mr. T. Cooper (before quoted) admits, that the “strict adherence to the syllogistic mode of reasoning,” that which he calls “playing tricks with syllogisms,” together with “the legerdemain of words without ideas,” was carried much too far by some late metaphysical writers of eminence; yet he is of opinion, that “in modern times, this invention of Aristotle is abandoned more than it deserves to be: For,” continues Mr. Cooper, “no man can so skilfully analyse the argument of another, as one who is well acquainted with the rules of scholastic logic, and accustomed to apply them. Good reasoners there are and will be, who know nothing of these rules, but better reasoners who do.”
Mr. Cooper doubts, whether metaphysical lectures should be delivered, at all, in colleges; but thinks, that if metaphysics were to be there taught, the writings of Beattie, Oswald and Gregory, would be unworthy of notice. Much as the Writer of these Memoirs respects the talents and ingenuity of the learned Professor of Chemistry, he can by no means concur in this opinion: and he regrets, that he feels himself obliged to differ still more widely, from a gentleman of such acknowledged abilities, respecting the propriety of his recommending to youth the study of the works of Hobbes, Leibnitz and Collins.
Now, what the complexion and tendency of the tenets of Hobbes, Leibnitz, and other philosophers of the same class are, may be learnt from the following passages, translated from a French work, entitled, “De la Philosophie de la Nature, ou Traité de Morale pour l’Epece Humaine, tire de la Philosophie et fonde sur la Nature;” a work which, though anonymous in respect to its author, had passed through three editions in the year 1777. The writer thus says:
“Of what importance to me are the names of Carneades, of Lysander, of Hobbes, and the author of The System of Nature, names unhappily celebrated, which the apostle of the moral indifference of human actions alleges in favour of this atrocious extravagance?” (the doctrines of Fatality, Moral Scepticism, &c.) “Carneades was an arrogant Pyrrhonian, who doubted of every thing, excepting the superiority of his own logic. Hobbes had the audacity to write a book against the everlasting truths of geometry. Lysander, the enemy of the liberty of Sparta, and the corrupter of the oracles of Delos and Ammon, was one of those spirits of spleen and filth, who strive to acquire a name by reducing wickedness to a system. As for the anonymous Writer, whose licentious pen vents so much blasphemy on Nature, in disavowing the existence of God, he has purchased the right to deny that of Morality. He is equally silly with Salmonius, in braving the thunderbolt destined to stifle the stings of conscience.” Speaking of Leibnitz, in another place, this French Moralist observes, that “the Philosopher of Leipsick made of the soul a monad, and explained all the phænomena of its union with matter by a pre-established harmony. One portion of Europe believed him; because he set up a new system! and what is it but a metaphysical theory, without system?” And again: “What names have we to oppose to those of Descartes, Leibnitz, Pascal and Malbranch? The suffrage of Newton, alone, is sufficient to crush their Materialism; if, in the humble materials for the examination of human reason, the suffrage of one great man is competent to balance a syllogism.”
340. The professorships, all well supported and endowed, which are established at Oxford and Cambridge, (and, probably, there are similar institutions in the universities of Scotland and Ireland,) are in the following departments of literature and science: viz. Divinity, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Modern Languages, History (general,) Modern History, Civil Law, Common Law, Physic, Anatomy, Botany, Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Experimental Philosophy, Astronomy, Mathematics, Geometry, Moral Philosophy, Casuistry, Music.
341. See the editorial review, in that work, of an “Historical Report upon the progress of History and ancient Literature, since the year 1789, and upon their actual condition,” &c. vol. iii. No 1.
342. In the year 1789, Dr. Rittenhouse translated from the German of Mr. Lessing, director of the theatre at Hamburg, a tragedy called Lucia Sampson; which translation was printed; in the same year, by Mr. Charles Cist, of Philadelphia. In the preface to it, the translator says:—“This translation was attempted at the request of a friend; and the many virtuous sentiments and excellent lessons of morality it contains, will apologize for its being offered to the public. To young ladies it may afford useful instruction, and will, from the nature of the distress, be particularly useful to them: an elegant writer well acquainted with the human heart, has observed, that the affection of a father to his daughter unites extreme sensibility with the utmost delicacy; and this sentiment is, no doubt, in a great degree reciprocal.”
343. See Dr. Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt.
344. The memorialist undertakes to say, on the authority of his father (the late Rev. Mr. Barton,) that our philosopher was sufficiently well versed in the Latin, to have read Newton’s Principia in that language, besides studying it in his native tongue: and further, that, although he was very imperfectly acquainted with the grammatical construction of the Greek language, he had so far familiarized himself to a knowledge of its written characters and words, as enabled him to consult a lexicon; which he frequently did, for the purpose of ascertaining the true etymology of many of those technical terms, derived from the Greek, that are in common use in our language, particularly in relation to his favourite sciences.
345. In Hill’s Life of Dr. Barrow, it is remarked, that this great Mathematician (as well as learned Divine) “was always addicted to poetry, and very much valued that part of it which consists of description.” In like manner, Dr. Rittenhouse delighted in poetic effusions of genius and science. His Eulogist observes, that “the muse of Thomson charmed him most:” indeed, an astronomer, and a man of virtue and taste, could not but be charmed by the chaste and glowing descriptions of that fascinating poet, blended, as they are, with philosophical reflections. Our philosopher, however, greatly admired Milton also: so that these two celebrated votaries of the muses seemed to be his favourites. Why should not these partialities of Rittenhouse be noticed?—when similar observations have been made respecting the characters of other men, eminent in science; as, for example, that the favourite author of Erasmus and the younger Scaliger, was Terence, and that Grotius was an admirer of Terence, Lucan and Horace.
346. Nec lusisse pudet, is an observation which has, in particular instances, been applied to the occasional conduct and disposition of some of the wisest, best, and even gravest characters. Dr. Warton, in remarking on this line of Mr. Pope, viz.
347. See Dr. Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt.
348. Sir Isaac Newton, it is well known, was thoroughly persuaded of the Truth of Revelation: yet he did not escape the imputation of being an Arian, Mr. Whiston having represented him as such. It is equally a matter of notoriety, that similar opinions have prevailed respecting Dr. Rittenhouse’s religious creed: nay, further, that doubts were entertained by some, whether he believed at all in the fundamental principles of the Christian religion. In one instance, indeed, a virulent party-writer348a had the hardiness, one might say folly, to proclaim him an “Atheist!” The publication in which this false and shameful accusation was made, appeared about the time of Dr. Rittenhouse’s death, and, it is believed, shortly after that event.
As a Biographer of such a man as Rittenhouse, the Author of these Memoirs would do great injustice to his memory, did he not lay before his readers, in a full and undisguised manner, that sort of testimony concerning our Philosopher’s religious sentiments, which it is presumed will eradicate every doubt or suspicion, that has heretofore existed in the minds of some, on the subject. He is aware of the influence, which the opinions of eminently wise and good men (or, of such sentiments as are sometimes attributed to them,) have, in their operation on society; and, in every point of view, he fully estimates the importance of representing them to the world, in a strict conformity to truth.
These considerations have induced the Memorialist to devote a larger portion of his work to an elucidation of Dr. Rittenhouse’s real opinions on the all-important subject of Religion, than he should have thought proper, under other circumstances, to appropriate to that part of his character.
Under these impressions, then, the Memorialist could not think it consistent with his duty, to withhold from the public a letter addressed to him by the Rev. Mr. Cathcart, a clergyman of much respectability and pastor of a presbyterian congregation in the borough of York. This letter (which will be found in the Appendix) contains what may be fairly deemed conclusive evidence, even if such had been before wanting, that Dr. Rittenhouse was “a firm Believer in Christianity.” Bishop White had communicated to the Memorialist, in conversation, the interesting facts stated in Mr. Cathcart’s letter; the knowledge of which, the Bishop had derived, verbally, from that gentleman: his letter was written in answer to one which the Memorialist addressed to him, on the occasion, at the instance of the Right Rev. Prelate.
348a. Mr. William Cobbett.
349. “Astronomy, like the Christian religion, if you will allow me the comparison,” said our Philosopher, “has a much greater influence on our knowledge in general, and perhaps on our manners too, than is commonly imagined. Though but few men are its particular votaries, yet the light it affords is universally diffused among us; and it is difficult for us to divest ourselves of its influence so far, as to frame any competent idea of what would be our situation without it.” See Ritt. Orat.
In another part of his Oration, is this passage: “Our Religion teaches us what Philosophy could not have taught: and we ought to admire, with reverence, the great things it has pleased Divine Providence to perform, beyond the ordinary course of nature, for man, who is, undoubtedly, the most noble inhabitant of this globe:” &c.
And in addition to these sentiments, uttered and published by our Philosopher himself, let the testimony of Dr. Rush, who had long and intimately known him, be quoted from the learned Professor’s Eulogium. “He believed in the Christian Revelation,” says the Doctor: and then subjoins, “Of this he gave many proofs; not only in the conformity of his life to the precepts of the Gospel, but in his letters and conversation.”
350. The Rev. Ashbel Green, D. D. This gentleman succeeded the Rev. Dr. Sproat, an aged clergyman, of amiable disposition and unaffected piety, for whose character our Philosopher entertained a great esteem, and, during the latter part of whose ministry in that church, he first attended it. Dr. Green has lately become President of the College of New-Jersey, in consequence of the resignation of the learned and eloquent Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D.
351. The following extract of a letter, which Professor Rusk was so obliging as to address to the writer of these memoirs, in the spring of the year 1812, in answer to some questions proposed by the memorialist, favours the presumption, that our philosopher in some points dissented from the opinions of very respectable Calvinistic Divines, on the subject of religion. “I understood from the Rev. Dr. Green,” says the learned Professor, that his late colleague, the Rev. Dr. Sproat, had informed him, that in a visit he once paid to Dr. Rittenhouse, they were led accidentally to converse upon a religious subject, on which they held different opinions. Dr. Sproat, in defending his opinions, quoted several texts of scripture; but observed, after doing so; “Perhaps, Mr. Rittenhouse, you do not admit of the validity of arguments derived from the bible.” “Pardon me, Sir,” (said Mr. Rittenhouse,) “I admit the divine authority of the contents of that book.” Another fact stated by Dr. Rush, at the same time, and which was also communicated to the memorialist, by a very near and dear friend of the deceased, is thus related by the Doctor: “His late worthy companion, Mrs. Rittenhouse, informed me, that the last sourse from whence he derived intellectual and moral pleasure, was Dr. Price’s excellent sermon upon the Goodness of God, which she read to him, at his request, on the two successive days before he died.” It may not be thought unworthy of being remarked on this occasion, that Mr. T. Dobson, of Philadelphia, republished Price’s Sermons, in the year 1788, and that Mrs. Rittenhouse’s name appears in the list of subscribers to that edition.
In Dr. Rush’s letter, just quoted, he introduces the subject in these terms. “In answer to your question, relative to the religious opinions of your late uncle and my excellent friend, Dr. Rittenhouse, I am happy in being able to inform you, that I have no doubt of his having been a sincere believer in the most essential doctrines of the Christian religion: the ground upon which I formed this opinion, were derived not only from many incidental remarks in its favour, that fell from him in our conversations upon other subjects, but from the testimony of persons upon whose correctness I have the fullest reliance.”
Upon the whole it appears, that although our philosopher was, most probably, not strictly Calvinistical in his religious creed, he was nevertheless a pious man, and a sincere Christian in the fundamental articles of his faith.
352. Dr. Rittenhouse had no more faith in the notion entertained by some visionary men, of the attainment of the perfection of virtue, in this life, than he had in the fantastic opinion, maintained also by some, of the perfectibility of human reason. He supposed that we are capable, by a progressive “enlargement of our faculties,” to “advance towards the perfection of the Divinity;” not like those pretenders to philosophy, who, as Mr. Voltaire expresses it, “took it into their heads, by the example of Descartes, to put themselves into God’s place, and create a world with a word!” Our philosopher knew, that pure virtue and perfect reason do not belong to human nature.
353. Dr. Rush’s Eulogium.
354. Ibid.
355. This quotation and the other passages, before which inverted commas are placed in the margin, in the two last paragraphs of the text, are extracted from Dr. Rittenhouse’s Oration.
356. Dr. Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol.
357. A late learned philosopher and eloquent divine, after adverting to the irrational and infatuated notions of men of the class above referred to, contrasted with doctrines founded in truth, and the awful gloom, destitute of every ray of consolation, that must necessarily accompany their reflections upon their own principles, addresses to them this short but serious invocation: “When these things are fairly weighed, as in nature they exist, I call on you, nay I challenge you, ye boasting philosophists! to comfort yourselves, and be easy under your dreary doctrine, or notion of being safe after death, in a state of annihilation or future nothingness! I call on you, ye wise Illuminati! of upstart name, to weigh these things seriously; and try whether you can comfort yourselves, and remain easy, in considering, and striving to make others consider, Death, as only an “everlasting Sleep,” from which they will never be awakened, nor their ashes disturbed!” See Sermon V. in The Works of William Smith, D. D. late Provost of the College and Academy of Philadelphia.
358. “Let others creep by timid steps, and slow,
On plain experience, lay foundations low;
By common sense, to common knowledge bred;
And lost to nature’s cause through nature led:
All-seeing in thy mists, we want no guide,
Mother of Arrogance and source of pride!
We nobly take the high priori road,
And reason downward, till we doubt of God.”
Pope’s Dunciad, b. IV. l. 455.
358a. In his work entitled, “A Discourse concerning the Being and Attributes of a God, the Obligations of Natural Religion, and the truth and certainty of the Christian Revelation; in answer to Mr. Hobbes, Spinoza, the Author of the Oracles of Reason, and other deniers of natural and revealed Religion.”
359. See Ritt. Orat.
360. Ibid.
361. “Other systems of Philosophy have ever found it necessary to conceal their weakness and inconsistency, under the veil of unintelligible terms and phrases, to which no two mortals, perhaps, ever affixed the same meaning. But the philosophy of Newton disdains to make use of such subterfuges; it is not reduced to the necessity of using them, because it pretends not to be of nature’s privy council, or to have access to her most inscrutable mysteries; but, to attend carefully to her works, to discover the immediate causes of visible effects, to trace those causes to others more general and simple, advancing by slow and sure steps towards the Great First Cause of all things.” Ritt. Orat.
362. Dr. Morse, the Geographer.
363. See his Life of George Washington.
364. See the Eulogium on Rittenhouse.
365. The names ordinarily used to distinguish things, do not always truly denote the nature of the things they are designed to signify: and it is very evident, that any misapplication of a name, to which a specific meaning has been appropriated, cannot alter or otherwise affect the essence or inherent quality of the thing itself to which it is wrongly applied.
A nation may be a republic, notwithstanding its chief executive magistrate be denominated a king. A kingly government may be essentially republican, provided the people be governed by known laws, and their king be limited in his prerogative, by the constitution of the state; not such a monarch as is vested with uncontrouled power. In this sense, the British government may, as some modern writers have shewn, be called a commonwealth, or republic: and under a similar impression, Sir Thomas Smith, even in the reign of so rigid a prince as Henry VIII. wrote his book De Republicâ Anglicanâ. The republic of Poland was long governed by elective kings; and Shakespeare, (nay, even the leveller Godwin,365a) appears to have considered Monarch, King and President, as synonymous terms.
365a. The Memorialist can truly say, with the author of the Pursuits of Literature:—“I have given some attention to Mr. Godwin’s work on Political Justice, as conceiving it to be the code of improved modern ethics, morality, and legislation. I confess I looked not for the Republic of Plato, or even for the Oceana of Harrington; but for something different from them all. I looked, indeed, for a superstructure raised on the revolutionary ground of Equality, watered with the Guillotine; and such I found it.” See Pursuits of Literature, Dial. the third, note p. of the seventh Lond. edit.
366. “It belongs to monarchies,” says Dr. Rush, “to limit the business of government to a privileged order of men.” See Eulog.
367. See Ritt. Orat. before the Am. Philos. Soc. in 1775.
368. See the ordaining clause of the Constitution of the United States.
369. Mr. Pope was not singular in the opinion here expressed: one of the most illustrious legislators and best practical statesmen the world has ever known, appears to have entertained the same sentiment, when he penned the following passages: they are extracted from the Frame of Government originally designed by William Penn, for Pennsylvania: published in the year 1682.
“Any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame,) where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws; and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, and confusion.”
“There is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill designed by its first founders, that, in good hands, would not do well enough; and story tells us, the best, in ill ones, can do nothing that is great or good.” “I know,” continues Penn, “some say, Let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill men; but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones. It is here, good laws have some awe upon ill ministers; but that is where they have not power to escape or abolish them, and the people are generally wise and good: but a loose and depraved people (which is to be the question) love laws and an administration like themselves. That, therefore, which makes a good constitution, must keep it, viz. men of wisdom and virtue; qualities that, because they descend not with worldly inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth.”
370. See Dr. Rush’s Eulog. on Ritt.
371. About the middle of January, 1813, the Memorialist passed a very pleasant evening, in company with an agreeable party of friends, at the house of Dr. Rush. Among various subjects, which were then discussed with much ingenuity and good humour, Redhefer’s pretended discovery of what is called the Perpetual Motion, a thing which had then, very recently, attracted a good deal of the public attention, was brought upon the tapes: when Dr. Rush, addressing himself to the Writer, who had just expressed his opinion decidedly against the projector’s theory, as being utterly incompatible with established principles of physics and well-known laws of the material world, said quite emphatically; “Sir, I entirely agree with you: and let me observe, there are four things, concerning which I have always been completely sceptical, as I am sure your good uncle371a also was; that is to say, the perfectibility of human reason; the possibility of transmuting base metals into silver and gold; a panacea, in the healing art; and a power, in any mortal, to give perpetuity of motion to matter.” These were, substantially, the sentiments expressed by Dr. Rush, on the occasion; and the Writer believes he is pretty accurate in his recollection of the very words which the Doctor used.
371a. Dr. Rittenhouse.
372. See Notes on Virginia.
373. All the boundary-lines, mentioned above, were determined by astronomical observations. The manner in which the work was performed, with an account of the instruments used on those occasions, will be found in the fourth volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. Some of Dr. Rittenhouse’s associates, in those arduous undertakings, were men of high reputation in the same departments of science; but his talents were principally relied on.
374. See Notes on Virginia.
375. Ibid.
376. It will, perhaps, have occurred to the reader, that besides such of the WORKS of Dr. Rittenhouse, as are referred to in the text, in some of which, the blended effects of genius, philosophical science and mechanical skill, were equally conspicuous, he put the Mint into operation. In the language of his worthy successor in the direction of that institution, “his lofty and correct mind, capable alike of ascending to the sublimest heights of science, and of condescending to regulate the minute movements of mechanical machinery, organized the Mint, and created the workmen and the apparatus.” His agency in directing the construction, and arranging the operative departments, of this important establishment, though less indicative of extraordinary mechanical genius than many of his other works, was nevertheless an arduous undertaking: it was conducted, as Mr. De Saussure very justly observed, “amidst complicated difficulties, from which the most persevering minds might have shrunk without dishonour.”
377. Dr. Rush, in his Eulogium on Rittenhouse, has introduced a short invocation, which aptly applies in this place: it is in these words; “Come, and learn by his example to be good, as well as great. His virtues furnish the most shining models for your imitation; for they were never obscured by a single cloud of weakness or vice.”
378. Mr. Chief Justice Marshall makes an observation, in reference to General Washington, which applies with equal force to Dr. Rittenhouse. “To estimate rightly his worth, we must contemplate his difficulties: we must examine the means placed in his hands, and the use he made of those means.” Pref. to Marshall’s Life of Washington.
379. Mr. Maclaurin having noticed that the Author of Nature has made it impossible for us to have any communication, from this earth, with the other great bodies of the universe, in our present state; and after remarking on some phænomena in the planetary system, makes the following just reflections, which correspond with those expressed by Dr. Rittenhouse, in the concluding pages of his Oration:—“From hence, as well as from the state of the moral world and many other considerations, we are induced to believe, that our present state would be very imperfect without a subsequent one; wherein our views of nature, and of its great Author, may be more clear and satisfactory. It does not appear to be suitable to the wisdom that shines throughout all nature, to suppose that we should see so far, and have our curiosity so much raised concerning the works of God, only to be disappointed in the end. As man is undoubtedly the chief being upon this globe, and this globe may be no less considerable, in the most valuable respects, than any other in the solar system, and this system, for ought we know, not inferior to any other in the universal system; so, if we should suppose man to perish, without ever arriving at a more complete knowledge of nature, than the very imperfect one he attains in his present state; by analogy, or parity of reason, we might conclude, that the like desires would be frustrated in the inhabitants of all the other planets and systems; and that the beautiful scheme of nature would never be unfolded, but in an exceedingly imperfect manner, to any of them. This, therefore, naturally leads us to consider our present state as only the dawn or beginning of our existence, and as a state of preparation or probation for farther advancement: which appears to have been the opinion of the most judicious philosophers of old. And whoever attentively considers the constitution of human nature, particularly the desires and passions of men, which appear greatly superior to their present objects, will easily be persuaded that man was designed for higher views than of this life. Surely, it is in His power to grant us a far greater improvement of the faculties we already possess, or even to endow us with new faculties, of which, at this time, we have no idea, for penetrating farther into the scheme of nature, and approaching nearer to Himself, the First and Supreme Cause.”
The striking coincidence of the foregoing sentiments, with those expressed by Dr. Rittenhouse; in addition to the sublimity of the conceptions; the cogency of the argument; and the weight of the concurring opinions of two so great astronomers and mathematicians, on a subject of such high importance to mankind; all plead an apology for the length of this extract, from Maclaurin’s Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries.
380. Patrick Murdoch, M.A.F.R.S.
381. The words between inverted commas, in the above paragraph, are quoted from Rittenhouse’s Oration.
Notwithstanding the fanciful theories introduced into physics by Descartes, concerning his materia subtilis and vortices, and his doctrine of a plenum, which were prostrated by the general adoption of the Newtonian system, the improvements that had been made in the mathematical sciences and some other branches of physics, by the Cartesian system, produced a great revolution in the species of philosophy which till then prevailed. The philosophy of Descartes, erroneous and defective as, in some particulars, it was found to be, triumphed, by its superior energy, over the crude and feeble systems of the schools. The peripatetic doctrines which had revived in Europe, after she emerged from the barbarism and gloom that succeeded the final declension of the Roman empire, continued from that period to be the prevailing philosophy; and tinctured, also, the whole mass of the scholastic theology: but the systems of Descartes first dissipated most of the useless subtleties of the schoolmen; while the truths brought to light by the philosophy of Newton, still further exposed their absurdities. According to Dr. Reid (in his Essays on the intellectual and active powers of Man,) even the most useful and intelligible parts of the writings of Aristotle himself had, among them, become neglected; and philosophy was reduced to an art of speaking learnedly and disputing subtilely, without producing any invention of utility in the affairs of human life. “It was,” to use the language of Dr. Reid, “fruitful in words, but barren of works; and admirably contrived for drawing a veil over human ignorance, and putting a stop to the progress of knowledge, by filling men with a conceit that they knew every thing. It was very fruitful also in controversies; but, for the most part, they were controversies about words, or things above the reach of the human faculties.”
382. The celebrated Dr. Samuel Johnson has remarked, that “Leibnitz persisted in affirming that Newton called Space, Censorium Numinis, notwithstanding he was corrected, and desired to observe that Newton’s words were, Quasi Censorium Numinis. See Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.
383. This concise, yet beautiful and expressive sentence, is contained in St. Paul’s address to the Athenians, cited in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
384. A strong proof of this veneration will be found in Dr. Rittenhouse’s Oration, wherein he expresses himself in these remarkable words:—“It was, I make no doubt, by a particular appointment of Providence, that at this time the immortal Newton appeared.”
385. Lord Strangford, in his Remarks on the Life and Writings of Camoens.
386. See his Oration.