Eloge of Alexander Volta. 15 



Both these principles are too exclusive. Pascal entrusted to 

 his brother-in-law Perrier, the task of ascending the Puy-de- 

 Dome to observe the barometer, and yet the name of Pascal is 

 the only one associated with that of Toricelli, when we speak of 

 the weight of the atmosphere. Michell and Cavendish, on the 

 contrary, divide with no others the merit of their celebrated ex- 

 periment regarding the attraction of terrestrial bodies, although 

 many before them had thought of performing it ; in this instance 

 the execution was all. The labours of Volta, Lavoisier, and 

 Laplace, are not exactly parallel to either of these cases. I ad- 

 mit that a man of genius might conceive, without suggestions 

 from another, that electricity concurred in the production of va- 

 pours ; but in order to bring this idea out of the region of hy- 

 pothesis, it was necessary to establish particular means of obser 

 vation, ^and even to construct new instruments. Those em- 

 ployed by Lavoisier and Laplace, they owed to Volta. They 

 were made at Paris under his inspection, and he assisted at their 

 first trial. Such abundant proofs of direct co-operation, indis- 

 putably connect the name of Volta with every theory of the elec- 

 tricity of vapours ; but who will presume to affirm, in the ab- 

 sence of a positive declaration from himself to the contrary, that 

 the experiment was not undertaken at the suggestion of the 

 French philosophers.? In this state of doubt, will it not be 

 most judicious, on this as well as on the other side of the Alps, 

 no longer to separate, when speaking of these phenomena, the 

 names of Volta, Lavoisier, and Laplace, and to cease to make 

 the question a source of mutual recriminations, which scarcely 

 admit of an excuse, even if the truth were obvious. 



These reflections will terminate, I trust, an unpleasant discus- 

 sion which malignant passions are so prone to perpetuate ; they 

 will afford, at all events, an additional proof how delicate a mat- 

 ter is the just appropriation of intellectual labour. When three 

 of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century, arrived 

 at the height of reputation, could not agree as to the share of 

 invention due to each in an experiment made in common, need 

 it excite our surprise to witness similar disputes among those 

 who are just entering upon their career ? 



Notwithstanding the length of this digression, I cannot leave 

 the experiment which has led to it, without shewing its import- 



