OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 185 



XVII. 



THE MfiCANIQUE CELESTE OF LAPLACE, AND ITS 

 TRANSLATION WITH A COMMENTARY EY BOW- 

 DITCH. 



By Joseph Loveuing. 



Presented June 8, 1889. 



Laplace was born in Beaumont-en-Auge on March 28, 1749. The 

 early years of his life are hidden in the obscurity of his humble 

 origin. It is only known that he was the son of a small farmer. 

 He first gained distinction in a theological controversy. After atteud- 

 ino- some of the classes in a military school in Beaumont, he taught 

 mathematics there. At the age of eighteen, he approached the great 

 D'Alembert with the hope of finding some career in Paris, and was 

 rebuffed. Afterwards, Laplace sent to him a letter on the Principles 

 of Mechanics. D'Alembert wrote back : " You see that I make little 

 enouffh of the matter of recommendations. You have no need of 

 them. You have done better : to know. This is enough for me : my 

 support is your due." Thus he mounted at once to the position of 

 Mathematical Professor in the Military School at Paris. Before en- 

 tering the Paris Academy, at the age of twenty-four, he began his career 

 of investigation by which he won the title of the Newton of France, 

 having made a capital discovery relating to the mean distances of 

 the planets from the sun. Laplace was also an investigator in phys- 

 ics and chemistry, working with Lavoisier and Berthollet. Only 

 fifteen days before his last sickness, he communicated to the Memoirs 

 of the Academy a paper on the oscillations of the earth's atmosphere, 

 which was printed in the same volume which contained Poisson's 

 funeral oration. 



Of his three great works, the five volumes of the Mecanique 

 Celeste were published between 1799 and 1827 ; the Exposition du 

 Sysleme du Monde in 1796; and the Theorie analytique des Proba- 

 bilites in 1812, Arago reported, in 1842, that not a copy of the 

 last work was in the libraries of Paris, although three editions had 

 been published, and that the two other works were almost out of 



