198 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



publisher to send me the sheets of his book as they were printed. 

 Laplace replied to me with no less ceremony than if I had been a real 

 savant. However, as the end of the story, he refused my request ; 

 uot wishing, he said, that his work should be presented to the public 

 lefore it was completed, that it might be judged as a whole. This 

 polite refusal was doubtless very obliging in its form ; but, at bottom, 

 it badly suited my business. I was not willing to accept it without 

 appeal. I immediately wrote again to Laplace to represent to him 

 that he did me more honor than I merited, and than I desired. I am 

 not, I said to him, of the public who judge, but of the public who 

 study. I added, that, wishing to follow and make again all the calcu- 

 lations throughout, for my own instruction, I might, if he yielded to 

 my request, discover and indicate the errors of press which may have 

 slipped into them. My respectful persistence disarmed his reserve. 

 He sent to me all the sheets already printed, adding thereto a charm- 

 ing letter ; this time not at all ceremonious, but filled with the most 

 lively and precious encouragements. I need not say with what ardor 

 I devoured this treasure. I could well apply to myself the maxim, 

 Violenti rapiunt illud. 



" After this, every time I went to Paris, I carried my work of typo- 

 graphical revision, and presented it in person to M. Laplace. He re- 

 ceived it always with kindness, examined it, discussed it ; and that 

 gave me an opportunity to submit to him the difficulties which too 

 frequently baffled my weakness. His condescension to remo^'e tliem 

 was without bounds. But he himself could not always do it, with- 

 out giving attention to them ; sometimes pretty long. That happened 

 usually in places where, to save himself from the details of a too ex- 

 panded exposition, he had employed the expeditious formula, // est 

 aise de voir. The thing, in fact, had appeared at the moment very clear 

 to his eyes. But it was not so always, even for him, some time after- 

 wards. Then, if you asked him the explanation of it, he sought it 

 patiently, by different ways, on his own account as well as yours ; and 

 there was, without doubt, the most instructive of commentaries. Once 

 I saw him pass almost an hour trying to seize again the chain of rea- 

 soning which he had concealed under this mysterious symbol, 11 est 

 aise de voir. It must be said, for his acquittal, that if he had wished 

 to be completely explicit, his work would have required eight or ten 

 quarto volumes instead of five ; and perhaps he would not have lived 

 long enough to finish it." 



These minute details relating to the intellectual life of Laplace, so 

 sacredly preserved by Biot, the eminent mathematician and ph3rsicist. 



