132 EULOGY ON AMPi:RE, 



the rotatory drum received liim, and lie would soon hiive finished the 

 task if, wishing to complete the experiment, I had not caused him to be 

 removed in order to give the refractory dog a new trial. The refractory 

 dog, wJwse turn had now come, obeyed the first signal of the cook, entered 

 the rustic turnspit without resistance, and went to work like a squirrel in 

 its cage. 



"Does it not follow from this, my dear Ami)ere, that dogs can have 

 the consciousness of the just and the unjust, leading them to lay out a 

 rule for themselves, and to endure corporal punishment rather than 

 allow any violation of it ?" 



Ampere's features so keenly expressed the interest he took in the 

 recital that you might have fancied he was about to exclaim with Lac- 

 tance, "Except iu matters of ieligi(m, the brute creation share all the 

 advantages of the human race." Hovv^ever, our associate did not press 

 the matter as far as the Christian Cicero. While modifying his former 

 views on instinct, he merely admitted that animated beings, taken iu 

 the aggregate, exhibit every possible degree of intelligence, from the 

 lowest up to that which, to adopt the ex{)ression of Voltaire, might in- 

 spire with jealousy the familiars of Jove himself. 



1 shall not leave this t'ubject without giving another example to show 

 in spite of his extreme animation iu discnssion in the liiain, how 

 ti'ue and tolerant Ampere was, and how free from the malevolent pas- 

 sions thiit unconceived ideas and conceit usually bring in their train. 

 In some manuscrii)t notes of a i)rofes:-or cf Lyons, M. Bredin, with 

 whom Amjiere studied the metai>liysical doctrine of the absolute, 1 find 

 these exact words: "Fcr?/ animated discussions daily arose between tis, 

 and in them originated that holy and indissoluble friendship which has so 

 finnlij united, us.^'' 



A writer of romance would fancy he was doing violence to proba- 

 bility by placing friendship among the i^ossible consiequences of heatetl 

 disctissions. A i)resum[)tion so unparalleled could only be tolerated in 

 the land of fable. 



MATHEMATICAL LABOKS OF AMPi]EE. 



Such a man as xVmjsere often puts the self-love of his biographer to a 

 severe trial. I was obliged just now to shrink from psychological 

 researches whose importance and depth I coidd not reach; and here 

 again 1 am forced to confess that an intelligible analysis, in common 

 language, of tlie works of our associate on i)ure mathematics, is beyond 

 my poweis. iTevertheless, as iu these works figure the memoirs 

 which, after the death of Lagrange iu 1813, opened the doors of the 

 Aciulemy to our friend, they ought tO be mentioned, if only by their 

 titles. 



The adventurous mind of Ampi^re was always fond of questions that 

 the fruitless edbrts of twenty centuries had pronounced insoluble; he 

 was never hapi)ier, if I may be allowed the expression, than when 



