LAPLACE. 



EULOGY BY ARAGO BEFORE THE FRENCH ACADEMY. 



Translated by Prof. Baden Powell. 



Having been appointed to draw up the report of a committee of the 

 Chamber of Deputies, -wbich was nominated in 1842, for the purpose of 

 taking into consideration the expediency of a proposal submitted to the 

 chamber by the minister of public instruction, relative to the publica- 

 tion of a new edition of the works of Laplace at the public exi)ense, I 

 deemed it to be my duty to embody in the report a concise analysis of 

 the works of our illustrious countryman. Several persons, influenced, 

 perhaps, by too indulgent a feeling toward me, having expressed a wish 

 that this analysis should not remain buried amid a heaj) of legislative 

 documents, but that it should be published in the Annuaire du Bureau 

 des Longitudes, I took advantage of this circumstance to develop it 

 more fully, so as to render it less unworthy of public attention. The 

 scientific part of the report presented to the Chamber of Deputies will 

 be found here entire. It has been considered desirable to suppress the 

 remainder. I shall merely retain a few sentences containing an expla- 

 nation of the object of the proposed law, and an announcement of the 

 resolutions which were adopted by the three powers of the state. 



Laplace has endowed France, Europe, the scientific world, with three 

 magnificent compositions, the Traite de Mecanique Celeste, the Exposi- 

 tion du Syst^me du Monde, and the Theorie Analytique des Probabili- 

 tes. In the present day (1842) there is no longer to be found a single 

 copy of this last work at any book-seller's establishment in Paris. The 

 edition of the Mecanique Celeste itself will soon be exhausted. It was 

 painful, then, to reflect that the time was close at hand when persons 

 engaged in the study of the higher mathematics would be compelled, 

 for want of the original work, to inquire at Philadelphia, atjS"ew Y'ork, 

 or at Boston for the English translation of the chef (Vcevre of our coun- 

 tryman by the excellent geometer, Bowditch. These fears, let us hasten 

 to state, were not well founded. To republish the Mecanique Celeste 

 was, on the part of the famih^ of the illustrious geometer, to perform a 

 pious duty. Accordingly, Madame de Laplace, who is so justly, so i)ro- 



foundly attentive to everv circumstance calculated to enhance the re- 



9 s 



