15G JOSEPH FOURIER. 



The administrative duties of the prefect of I'lsere hardly interrupted 

 the hibors of the geometer aud the man- -of letters. It is from Grenoble 

 that the principal writings of Fourier are dated ; it was at Grenoble that 

 he composed the Thcorie Mathematique de la Chaleur, which forms his 

 principal title to the gratitude of the scientific world. 



I am far from being unconscious of the difficulty of analyzing that 

 admirable work, and yet I shall attempt to point out the successive 

 steps which he has achieved in the advancement of science. You will 

 listen to me, gentlemen, with indulgence, notwithstanding several minute 

 details which 1 shall have to recount, since I thereby fulfill the mission 

 with which you have honored me. 



The ancients had a taste, let us say rather a passion, for the marvel- 

 ous, which caused them to forget even the sacred duties of gratitude. 

 Observe them, for example, grouping together the lofty deeds of a great 

 number of heroes, whose names they have not even deigned to preserve, 

 and investing the single personage of Hercules with them. The lapse 

 of ages has not rendered us wiser in this respect. In our own time the 

 public delight in blending fable with history. In every career of life, 

 in the pursuit of science especially, they enjoy a pkasure in creating 

 Herculeses. According to vulgar opinion, there is no astronomical dis- 

 covery which is not due to Ilerschel. The theory of the planetary 

 movements is identified with the name of Laplace ; hardly is a passing 

 allusion made to the eminent labors of D'Alembert, of Clairaut, of Euler, 

 of Lagrange. AVatt is the sole inventor of the steam-engine. Chaptal 

 has enriched the arts of chemistry with the totality of the fertile and 

 ingenious processes which constitute their prosperity. Even within this 

 apartment has not an eloquent voice lately asserted that, before Fourier, 

 the phenomenon of heat was hardly studied, that the celebrated geom- 

 eter had alone made more observations than all his predecessors put 

 together 5 that he had with almost a single etfort invented a new science? 



Although he runs the risk of being less lively, the organ of the 

 Academy of Sciences cannot permit himself such bursts of entliusiasm. 

 He ought to bear in mind that the object of these solemnities is not 

 merely to celebrate the discoveries of Academicians ; that they are also 

 designed to encourage modest merit; that an observer, forgotten by his 

 contemporaries, is frequently supported in his laborious researches by 

 the thought that he will obtain a benevolent look from posterity. Let us 

 act, so far as it depends upon us, in such a manner that a hope so just, so 

 natural, may not be frustrated. Let us award a just, a brilliant homage 

 to those rare men whom nature has endowed with the precious privilege 

 of arranging a thousand isolated lacts, of making seductive theories 

 spring from them ; but let us not forget to state, that the scythe of the 

 reaper had cut the stalks before one had thought of uniting them into 

 sheaves ! 



Heat presents itself in natural phenomena, and in thidse which are the 

 products of art, under two entirely distinct fo|;ms, which Fourier has 



