t 264 ] 



XLVI. Analysis of the Mecanique Celeste ofM. La P^ace, 

 Member of the French Institute, &c. By M. Biot *. 



JNewton, by publishing his Principia and the immortal 

 discovery of universal gravity, gave a new direction to the 

 physical and mathematical sciences. He was th« first who 

 demonstrated that, in order to discover truth in the study of 

 nature, it was not necessary to imagine precarious causes 

 ki order to deduce: from them hypothetical results, but to 

 ascend by a course of well -directed inductions from the 

 phenomena observed to the laws which produce them ; and 

 in this point of view we may regard this great man as having 

 prepared the way for all the discoveries of his successors, 

 Newton presented under the synthetical form, results which 

 might probably have been attained by a different route; and 

 herein he perhaps attached himself to his avowed predilection 

 for the method of the ancients ; and probably, also, he gave 

 way to a desire of concealing the course which he had pur- 

 sued. Modern geometricians, without entirely abandoning 

 constructions, which are always satisfactory to the mind, 

 have, felt that the assistance of analysis was necessary for 

 giving to the principle of universal gravity all the develop- 

 ments of which it is susceptible; and it is to this happy- 

 idea, and to the progress of the integral calculus, that the 

 theory of the system of the world owes the perfection which 

 h£s now been attained ; a perfection so great, that there does 

 not exist any astronomical phsenomenon, the causes and 

 laws of which cannot be assigned. But these valuable dis- 

 coveries, the results of the labours of a small number of 

 men, were too isolated from each other, and the chain by 

 which they were united too difficult to unravel, in order to 

 bring '.hem uithin the reach of the greater number. It be- 

 came important therefore to collect them in a work of the 

 , same nature, but in a form different and more complete 

 than that of Newton. This task required an equally inti- 

 mate acquaintance with astronomy and with analysis, and 

 particularly that philosophical mind which discusses phae- 



« Translated from the French, 



nomena 



