Though Bernoulli possessed a delicate constitution,. yet the regularity of his life, and the serenity of his temper, exempted him from those diseases to which he might otherwise have been subject. During a long life of 83 years, lie retained the complete use of all his faculties, and the last of his works exhibits the same profound genius which marked his earlier pro ductions. For some years before he died, he withdrew himself from the fatigues of society, and associated only with a few select friends, with whom he had been Icing connected. The attack of an asthma, how ever, began to impair his strength, and at last carried him off on the morning of the 17th of March 1782, when he was found dead in his bed.
Daniel Bernoulli was distinguished in private life by his simple and unassuming manners, which were neither marked by false diffidence, nor affected auste rity. He was charitable and humane without osten tation; and though his affairs were managed with that laudable economy which shuns the expenses of an idle vanity, he was never guilty of that avarice which some of his enemies have endeavoured to fix upon his name. Actuated by a love of peace, or warned perhaps by the fatal example which was ex hibited in the conduct of his father and his uncle, his life was never embittered by those malignant dissen sions which generally rage among men of genius. The humour which is occasionally displayed in some of his controversial writings, is a proof that the tran quillity which he enjoyed, was more the offspring of reason than of insensibility.. Possessed of such qua, lities, the friendship of Bernoulli was courted by the wisest and the most virtuous of his fellow citizens ; his advice even upon public affairs was implicitly followed ; persons of all ranks in Basle bowed to him as they passed, and the first lesson which a father. taught his
child, was to pay the usual respect to the aged phi losopher. The regard which he showed for religion, both in his writings and his conduct, might have saved his name from the unjust suspicion of infidelity ; but it is the lot of genius and virtue to suffer this un merited odium, and though Bernoulli-knew that the orthodox ministers of Basle accused him of thinking too freely, he never attempted either to confirm or to repel their charges.
Although Bernoulli was not insensible to the high fame which he enjoyed, he often related to his friends two adventures, which he remembered with more pleasure than all the honours with which he had been loaded. When travelling with a learned stranger, who was much pleased with his conversation, his com panion took the liberty of asking him his name.' " I am Daniel Bernoulli," replied the philosopher. " And I am Isaac Newton," returned the stranger ; who felt indignant that a man so young and so simple in his manners, should counterfeit the name of one of the greatest philosophers in Europe. On another oc casion, when the celebrated Koenig was dining at his house, Koenig spoke to him with much self-satisfac tion about a problem, which, after great labour, he had succeeded in resolving. Bernoulli continued to do the honours of the table, and before they rose from it, he presented Koenig with a solution more elegant than his own.
A more detailed account of the life and writings of Daniel Bernoulli, will be found in his eloge by the Marquis de Condorcet, and in the history of the dif ferent sciences which his genius has illustrated. ((3)