CONDORCET, MARIE-JEAN-ANTOINE-NICOLAS CARITAT, MARQUIS DE, was born in Picardy in 1743. His family owed their name and title to the castle of Condorcet, near Nion, in Dauphiny. His uncle, the bishop of Lisieux, who died in 1783, superintended his education, and was the means of procuring for him the most powerful patronage as soon as he was old enough to be introduced into public life. He first distinguished himself as a mathematician, and his success in this department soon opened to him the door of the Academy of Sciences. • It is on his application of philosophy to subjects connected with the happiness of mankind and the amelioration of social institutions that his fame chiefly rests. The friend of D'Alembert and of his Blest kits oontemporaries, Condorret was one of the warmest and most distinguished of Voltaire's disciples. He cannot, it is true, be placed in the first rank, either as • deep thinker or original writer; nevertheless his meditative and lofty mind, his unabated zeal in the euit of truth, his generous ardour, which never cooled or shrunk from the difficulties which it had to encounter, his perseverance in Applying himself to all sorta of useful pursuits, sod the multiplicity of his lebonrs, have all contributed to assign him a conspicuous place among thee., who have exercised an influence over the destinies of his country.
Ilia philosophical views have been widely circulated, and the practical eff-et of them is still aisible. The main doctrine which be sought to inculcate, and which is contained in his ' Esquisse des Progrs de l'Esprit humsin,' was the perfectibility of man, considered both In his individual and social capacity. According to him, the human frame and intellect, by the aid of time and education, would infallibly attain to perfection. This was the creed which he proposed to substitute in Um place of the sanctions of morality nud religion. This singular notion, with which he was so deeply imbued, has given to his philosophy a peculiar sod special character, which distinguishes it alike from the sceptical fatalism of Voltaire and the gloomy dog matism of Diderot. In the philanthropic mind of Condorcet philo sophical speculations were blended with the deepest sympathy for his fellowmen. and the most unwearied activity in promoting all such reforms as he thought useful. Of his magnanimity and elevation of Niel be gave ample proof in the heroic conduct which he pursued in the hour of difficulty and danger. Proscribed by the Convention as a Girondin; he voluntarily quitted the house of his friend Madame Verney. which had afforded him an asylum during eight months of the first revolution, rather than expose her to the consequences of a decree which might have made it •capital crime to harbour or conceal an outlawed deputy. Houseleas, and wandering about the country round Paris, he endeavoured to conceal himself in the numerous quarries with which its neighbourhood abounds. At hest the pressure of hunger drove him into a small inn in the village of Cluanart. where
Ile loess itiou-ly betrayed himself by exhibiting a pocket-book obviously too elegant for one in so destitute a condition. He was arrested, and though exhausted by want and fatigue, and with a sore foot occasioned by excea'ive walking, he was conveyed to Bourg-la-Reine, and thrown into a dungeon. On the morrow (28th of March 1794), ho was found dead in his cell, having put a period to his existence by swallowing poison, which he always carried about him in order to avoid the ignominy of the scaffold.
The mathematical works of Condorcet are numerous, consisting in great part of memoirs in the ' Transactions' of the academy. In pure mathematics he devoted himself mostly to the development of the differential and integral calculus : Ile lived during the time when the higher parts of that science began to assume their present powerful form; and his labonrs ou the subject of differential equations must preserve his name in conuection with their history. His applications of tuatbematics are,-1, the problem of three bodies, in which he had no particular success; 2, the application of the mathematical theory of probabilities to judicial decisions, nt that time a new and ingenious opecnlation, the grounds of which are generally misunderstood, but which WAS treated by Condorcet with a degree of power which entitles his work to no mean rank among those which have led the way to a perception of th' extensive bearings of the integral calculus. Con. dorcet la not in the very first rank of mathematicians, but very high iu the second. As a literary author, his ' Eloges des Acaddmiciens snorts depute 1099; procured for him the perpetual secretaryship of the Academy of Sciences, end furthered his election to the French Academy. Though decidedly inferior to Fentenello's • Elope Aced& miques; both in point and simplicity, they nevertheless show Coudorcet to be • pure and elegant writer, as well as a good judge of the merit, of others. His ' laves of Voltaire and Turgot,' in which these qualities are most apparent, ore moreover diatinguished by the enlightened philanthropy, the philosophies! zeal, and that desire for improvement, which was always the strongest feeling in the author's heart The style in which they are written is clear, and if eotne what monotonous, is not altogether devoid of force and spirit. his numerous works (of which he had not time to undertake a regular and careful revision), he contributed several articles to the papers entitled the ' Feuille and the 'Chronique do Peril. But the grand work of Condorcet was his ' Esquisse du Progres do l'Eaprit butneirt; which he wrote while he WAS eceking refuge from proscription, and for which he had uo other materials except such as he had tre satired up in his owe vast and capacious memory : it is a work more remerkebls for depth of thonght then brilliancy of style.