EULOGY ON THOMAS YOUNO. 



By M. Arago. 



READ AT A PUBLIC SITTING OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, NOVEMBEK 



26, 1832. 



[The previous eulogies whichhave been pnblisbecl in the appendix to the Smitlisonian 

 report, have been translated for the Institution from the original French. The follow- 

 ing eulogy, however, is reprinted from a translation by the bite Baden PoweU, pro- 

 fessor of natural philosophy in the university of Oxford. — J. H.] 



Gentlemen: It seems as if death, wTio is incessantly thinning onr 

 ranks, directetl his stroke with a fatal i>redilection against that class of 

 oar body, so limited in number, our foreign associates. In a short space 

 of time the Academy has lost, from the lists of its members, Herschel, 

 whose bold ideas on the structure of the universe have acquired every 

 year more of probability ; Piazzi, who, on the first day of the present 

 century, presented our solar system with a new planet ; Watt, who, if 

 not the inventor of the steam-engine, the inventor having been a 

 Frenchman,* was* at least the creator of so many admirable con- 

 trivances by the aid of which the little instrument of Papin has become 

 the most ingenious, the most useful, the most powerful means of apply- 

 ing industry; Volta, who has been immortalized by his electric pile ; 

 Davy, equally celebrated for the decomposition of the alkalies and for 

 the invaluable safety-lamp of the miner ; Wollaston, whom the English 

 called the Pope, because he never proved fallible in any of his numerous 

 experiments, or of his subtile theoretical speculations; Jenner, lastly, 

 whose discovery I have no need to extol in the presence of fathers of 

 families. To pay to such of its distinguished ornaments the legitimate 

 tribute of the regret, of the admiration, and of the gratitude of all 

 men devoted to study, is one of the principal duties which the Academy 

 imposes on those whom it invests with the responsible honor of speak- 

 ing in its name in these solemn meetings. To pay this grand debt, with 

 the least possible delay, seems an obligation not less imperative. Gen- 

 tlemen, the native Academician always leaves behind him, among the 

 colleagues with whom he has been united by the election of the Academy, 

 many confidants of his secret thoughts, of the origin and course of his 

 researches, of the vicissitudes which he has gone through. The foreign 

 associate, on the contrary, resides far away from us ; he rarely joins in 

 our meetings; we know nothing of his life, his habits, his character, 

 unless from the reports of travelers. When several years have passed 

 over such fugitive documents, if we still find any traces of them, we 

 cannot reckon on tlieir accuracy. Literary intelligence which has not 

 found a record in print is a sort of coin the circulation of which alters 



* This is not the place to enter on the controversy respecting the invention of the 

 steam-engine. It may, however, be remarked that we may be well content to allow it 

 to remain a question of dcf/rce. Every tea-kettle is a steam-engine. A very slight and 

 obvious contrivance will enable steam to raise a piston. Let any one define what he 

 means precisely by the term steam-engine, and the question of priority of invention 

 will be easily settled. — Tra>'SLator. 



