PARDIES (Ignatius Gaston)

, an ingenious French mathematician and philosopher, was born at Pau, in the province of Gaseony, in 1636; his father being a counsellor of the parliament of that city.— At the age of 16 he entered into the order of Jesuits, and made so great a proficiency in his studies, that he taught polite literature, and composed many pieces in prose and verse with a distinguished delicacy of thought and style, before he was well arrived at the age of manhood. Propriety and elegance of language appear to have been his first pursuits; for which purpose he studied the Belles Lettres, and other learned productions. But afterwards he devoted himself to mathematical and philosophical studies, and read, with due attention, the most valuable authors, ancient and modern, in those sciences: so that, in a short time he made himself master of the Peripatetic and Cartesian philosophy, and taught them both with great reputation. Notwithstanding he embraced Cartesianism, yet he affected to be rather an inventor in philosophy himself. In this spirit he sometimes advanced very bold opinions in natural philosophy, which met with opposers, who charged him with starting absurdities: but he was ingenious enough to give his notions a plausible turn, so as to clear them seemingly from contradictions. His reputation procured him a call to Paris, as Professor of Rhetoric in the College of Lewis the Great. He also taught the mathematics in that city, as he had before done in other places. He had from his youth a happy genius for that science, and made a great progress in it; and the glory which his writings acquired him, raised the highest expectations from his future labours; but these were all blasted by his early death, in 1673, at 37 years of age; falling a victim to his zeal, he having caught a contagious disorder by preaching to the prisoners in the Bicetre.

Pardies wrote with great neatness and elegance. His principal works are as follow:

1. Horologium Thaumaticum duplex; 1662, in 4to.

2. Dissertatio de Motu et Natura Cometarum; 1665, 8vo.

3. Discours du Mouvement Local; 1670, 12mo.

4. Elemens de Geometrie; 1670, 12mo.—This has been translated into several languages; in English by Dr. Harris, in 1711.

5. Discours de la Connoissance des Betes; 1672, 12mo.

6. Lettre d'un Philosophe à un Cartesien de ses amis; 1672, 12mo.

7. La Statique ou la Science des Forces Mouvantes; 1673, 12mo.

8. Description et Explication de deux Machines propres à faire des Cadrans avec une grande facilité; 1673, 12mo.

9. Remarques du Mouvement d<*> la Lumiere.

10. Globi Cœlestis in tabula plana redacti Descrip. tio; 1675, folio.

Part of his works were printed together, at the Hague, 1691, in 12mo; and again at Lyons, 1725.— Pardies had a dispute also with Sir Isaac Newton, about his New Theory of Light and Colours, in 1672. His letters are inserted in the Philosophical Transactions for that year.