- But, let the consequences be
what they may, whatever he writes or does, it is always in self-
admiration and always in a counter sense, being as vain-glorious of
his encyclopedic impotence as he is of his social mischievousness.
Taking his word for it, his discoveries in Physics will render him
immortal[10]:
"They will at least effect a complete transformation in Optics. . .
. The true primitive colors were unknown before me."
He is a Newton, and still better. Previous to his appearance "the
place occupied by the electrical fluid in nature, considered as an
universal agent, was completely ignored. . . I have made it known
in such a way as to leave no further doubt about it."[11] As to the
heat-engendering fluid, "that substance unknown until my discovery, I
have freed the theory from every hypothesis and conjecture, from every
alembic argument; I have purged it of error, I have rendered it
intuitive; I have written this out in a small volume which consigns to
oblivion all that scientific bodies have hitherto published on that
subject."[12] Anterior to his treatise on "Man," the relationships
between moral and physics were incomprehensible.
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