164 EULOGY ON AMPERE. 



ceptious the books of liis libraiy remained uucut. Here and there a few 

 leaves were found jagged at the edges like a saw, certain proof of their 

 having been separated by a misapplied linger. An author, eveu 

 amongst the most celebrated, would have vainly sought for more numer- 

 ous and more manifest traces of the interest and curiosity of our friend. 

 A\ ith the single exception of the plan for a natural classification of all 

 human knowledge, to everything in the scientific and literary world he 

 liad become so indifferent that, as a proof, there now is in the hands of 

 geometers, and the students of our large schools, a treatise on the differen- 

 tial and integral calciUus, without the uame of the author, title, or table 

 of contents ; the publisher, after many ineffectual attempts, was forced 

 to conclude that Ampere would never furnish the few lines necessary 

 to give the uewbook the form of all books since the time of Gutenberg. 



Do not exclaim, gentlemen, at the singularity of this fact. I have, ac- 

 cording to my judgment, something still more extraordinary to relate. 



Fresnel, that illustrious physicist, who carried the experimental art to 

 its utmost limits; who, in the discussions of the most complex phenom- 

 ena, succeeded, by the force of genius, in dispensing with those i)ower- 

 fal but almost inaccessible aids found now in transcendental analysis — 

 Fresnel, by his death, left in the scientific world a great void, which, in 

 one respect at least, Ampere could have filled. Friends urged it; they 

 ])ainted in brilliant colors the glorious future of fame and usefulness 

 Avhieh wonld be added to a repntation already European ; but it was all 

 in vain. • Ampere was deterred by an incredible obstacle; he could not 

 accept the position offered, because, he said, it would place him under an 

 obligation to read two essays on the theory of waves, with which science 

 had just been enriched by M. Poisson. (The two essays were written 

 with the elegant precision which distinguishes all the works of that 

 illustrious geometer.) Ampere's excuse will astonish every one; but he 

 gave it in so feeling a tone that to show displeasure would have been 

 an act of barbarity. If gTeat and small things may be compared, they 

 would remind me of the reply of the young and able-bodied workman 

 to this question of Marivaux, "Why do you not work?" "Ah, sir, if 

 you only knew how lazy I am!" 



The large share I have just ascribed to influence of character must 

 not divert our attention from a cause not less powerful, which has itself 

 greatly contributed to diminish Ampere's works. If it is true that the 

 discoveries whose analysis I have just given, in spite of all they present 

 of the vast, the profound, and the ingenious, form but an inconsidera- 

 ble part of those which might have been the fruits of the powerful in- 

 tellect of our associate, the institutions responsible (solidaires) for so sad 

 a result merit the reprobation of every friend of science. I will follow, 

 gentlemen, by devoting a few words to the development of this idea, the 

 sensible advice of the author of the Essay on Eulogies: " In describing 

 great men, whether you emulate the gravity of Plutarch or the pungent 

 good sense of Fonteuelle, do not forget that your aim is to be useful." 



