FRENCH GEODESY 127 



tions of the heart that real arctic voyagers never know. It was almost 

 the region where, in our days, comfortable steamers carry, each summer, 

 hosts of tourists and young English people. But in those days Cook's 

 agency did not exist and Maupertuis really believed he had made a 

 polar expedition. 



Perhaps he was not altogether wrong. The Eussians and the 

 Swedes carry out to-day analogous measurements at Spitzbergen, in a 

 country where there is real ice-cap. But they have quite other resources, 

 and the difference of time makes up for that of latitude. 



The name of Maupertuis has reached us much scratched by the 

 claws of Doctor Akakia; the scientist had the misfortune to displease 

 Voltaire, who was then the king of mind. He was first praised beyond 

 measure; but the flatteries of kings are as much to be dreaded as their 

 displeasure, because the days after are terrible. Voltaire himself knew 

 something of this. 



Voltaire called Maupertuis, my amiable master in thinking, marquis 

 of the polar circle, dear flattener out of the world and Cassini, and even, 

 flattery supreme, Sir Isaac Maupertuis ; he wrote him : " Only the king 

 of Prussia do I put on a level with you; he only lacks being a geom- 

 eter." But soon the scene changes, he no longer speaks of deifying 

 him, as in days of yore the Argonauts, or of calling down from Olympus 

 the council of the gods to contemplate his works, but of chaining him 

 up in a madhouse. He speaks no longer of his sublime mind, but of his 

 despotic pride, plated with very little science and much absurdity. 



I care not to relate these comico-heroic combats ; but permit me 



some reflections on two of Voltaire's verses. In his " Discourse on 



Moderation" (no question of moderation in praise and criticism), the 



poet has written: 



You have confirmed in regions drear 



What Newton discerned without going abroad. 



These two verses (which replace the hyperbolic praises of the first 

 period) are very unjust, and doubtless Voltaire was too enlightened not 

 to know it. 



Then, only those discoveries were esteemed which could be made 

 without leaving one's house. 



To-day, it would rather be theory that one would make light of. 



This is to misunderstand the aim of science. 



Is nature governed by caprice, or does harmony rule there ? That is 

 the question. It is when it discloses to us this harmony that science is 

 beautiful and so worthy to be cultivated. But whence can come to us 

 this revelation, if not from the accord of a theory with experiment ? To 

 seek whether this accord exists or if it fails, this therefore is our aim. 

 Consequently these two terms, which we must compare, are as indispen- 

 sable the one as the other. To neglect one for the other would be non- 



