assing away, viz. an uncultured
absorption in his own pursuits, and some feeling of contempt for
classical and literary and aesthetic studies.

In politics, art, and history he seems to have had no interest. He was a
spectator rather than an actor on the stage of the world; and though he
joined the army of that great military commander Prince Maurice of
Nassau, he did it not as a man with a cause at heart worth fighting for,
but precisely in the spirit in which one of our own gilded youths would
volunteer in a similar case, as a good opportunity for frolic and for
seeing life.

He soon tired of it and withdrew--at first to gay society in Paris. Here
he might naturally have sunk into the gutter with his companions, but
for a great mental shock which became the main epoch and turning-point
of his life, the crisis which diverted him from frivolity to
seriousness. It was a purely intellectual emotion, not excited by
anything in the visible or tangible world; nor could it be called
conversion in the common acceptation of that term. He tells us that on
the 10th of November, 1619, at the age of twenty-four, a brilliant idea
flashed upon him--the first idea, namely, of his great and powerful
mathematical method, of which I will speak directly; and in the flush of
it he foresaw that just as geometers, starting with a few simple and
evident propositions or axioms, ascend by a long and intricate ladder of
reasoning to propositions more and more abstruse, so it might be
possible to ascend from a few data, to all the secrets and facts of the
universe, by a process of mathematical reasoning.

"Comparing the mysteries of Nature with the laws of mathematics, he
dared to hope that the secrets of both could be unlocked with the same
key."

That night he lapsed gradually into a state of enthusiasm, in which he
saw three dreams or visions, which he interpreted at the time, even
before waking, to be revelations from the Spirit of Truth to direct his
future course, as well as to warn him from the sins he had already
committed.

His account of the dreams is on record, but is not very easy to follow;
nor is it likely that a man should be able to convey to others any
adequate idea of the deepest spiritual or mental agitation which has
shaken him to his foundations.

His associates in Paris were now abandoned, and he withdrew, after some
wanderings, to Holland, where he abode the best part of his life and did
his real work.

Even now,