196 Baron Fourier's Historical Eloge of the 



theories, it alone is sufficient for its own purposes, while it il- 

 lustrates all the rest ; and it is so necessary to them, that with- 

 out its aid they must have remained very imperfect. 



Lagrange was destined to invent and to extend all the 

 sciences of calculation. In whatever condition fortune had 

 placed him, whether prince or peasant, he would have been a 

 great geometer. This he would have become necessarily and 

 without any effort — which cannot be said even of the most ce- 

 lebrated individuals who have excelled in this science. 



If Lagrange had been the contemporary of Archimedes and 

 Conon, he would have divided with them the glory of their 

 most memorable discoveries. At Alexandria he would have 

 been the rival of Diophantus. 



The distinctive mark of his genius consists in the unity and 

 grandeur of his views. He attached himself wholly to a simple 

 though just and highly elevated thought. His principal 

 work, the Mecanique Analytique, might be called Philo- 

 sophical Mechanics, for it refers all the laws of equilibrium 

 and motion to a single principle ; and, what is not less admir- 

 able, it submits them to a single method of calculation of 

 which he himself was the inventor. All his mathematical com- 

 positions are remarkable by their singular elegance, by sym- 

 metry of form, and generality of method, and, if we may so 

 express it, by the perfection of his analytical style. 



Lagrange was no less a philosopher than a great geometer. 

 He has proved this in the whole course of his life, by the mo- 

 deration of his desires, by his immoveable attachment to the 

 general interests of humanity, by the noble simplicity of his 

 manners, and the elevation of his character, and by the j ust- 

 ness and profoundness of his scientific labours. 



Laplace had received from nature all that force of genius 

 which a great enterprise required. Not only has he united in 

 his Almagest of the eighteenth century all that the mathematical 

 and physical sciences had already invented, and which formed 

 the foundation of astronomy, but he has added to this science 

 capital discoveries of his own which had escaped all his pre- m 

 decessors. He has resolved, either by his own methods or 

 by those of which Euler and Lagrange had pointed out the 

 principles, questions the most important, and certainly the 



