Character and Health
Le Sage described his manner of thinking and working by saying:
I have been born with four dispositions well adapted for making progress in science, but with two great defects in the faculties necessary for that purpose. 1. An ardent desire to know the truth; 2. Great activity of mind; 3. An uncommon (justesse) soundness of understanding; 4. A strong desire for precision and distinctness of ideas; 5. An excessive weakness of memory; 6. A great incapacity of continued attention.
Le Sage also suffered from insomnia, and as a result of this he often was unable to work for days. Additionally, in 1762 he had an accident which left him nearly blind.
To compensate the weakness of his memory, he wrote his thoughts on playing cards - over 35000 cards are still lying in the library of Geneva. As a consequence of his mental disposition, many of his papers remained unfinished and unpublished. For example: his main work on Gravitation; a history of theories of gravitation; a treatise on final causes; a biographical note on Nicolas Fatio de Duillier. However, some of them were posthumously published by his pupil Pierre Prévost.
Read more about this topic: Georges-Louis Le Sage
Famous quotes containing the words character and/or health:
“The reason why parents mistreat their children has less to do with character and temperament than with the fact that they were mistreated themselves and were not permitted to defend themselves.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“I think that carrying a baby inside of you is like running as fast as you can. It feels like finally letting go and filling yourself up to the widest limits.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Womens Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)