130 EULOGY ON AMPERE. 



you no longer tliiiik as I do. * * * This creates a frigbtfal void in 

 my soul." 



Ampere's friends in Lyons liad found liis x)sycliology somewhat dry 

 and minute. They tried to induce him to return to the exact sciences, 

 but our associate replied to them in a lyrical strain, " How can I abandon 

 a country full of flowers and fresh, running waters ; how give up streams 

 and groves for deserts scorched by the rays of a mathematical sun, 

 which, diffusing over all surrounding objects the most brilliant light, 

 withers and dries them down to the very roots >? * * * How much 

 more agreeable to wander under flitting shades than w^alk in straight 

 paths, where the eye embraces all at a glance, and where nothing seems 

 to fly before us to incite us to pursue !-' 



It was my desire to seek the fresh groves discovered by Ampere and 

 to try to persuade you to enter them wifh me ; but, alas ! accustomed 

 by your advice and example to prize above all things in matters of sci- 

 ence, straight and well-lighted paths, my dazzled eyes found but pro- 

 found darkness where the piercing eyes of our ingenious friend were 

 privileged to see brilliant semi- tints. Without the guide of Ariadne's clue 

 it would be in vain to attemp't Ampere's manuscripts, I should be afraid, I 

 must acknowledge, of being forced, as Voltaire was formerly, to place at the 

 end of each metaphysical proposition the two letters i^. L., traced by the 

 style of the Eoman magistrate, when the cases seemed too obscure to 

 allow a well-grounded judgment. But non liquet, (it is not clear,) too fre- 

 quently repeated, in spite of perfect sincerity, would have worn an air 

 of affected modesty to be avoided at any price. 



Is my extreme diffidence to be condemned ? It would not be diflicult 

 to justify it by pointing alone to the arrogant contempt each iDsychologi- 

 cal school casts upon its rival, and that through the organ of its most 

 eloquent propagandists. 



Listen to what I will read to you from the lectures of oue of its most 

 celebrated teachers, Laromiguiere, " ^\T]at is a science which has 

 neither fixed nor invariable methods ; which changes its nature and its 

 form at the will of those vrho profess it? What is a science which is 

 no longer to-day what it was yesterday ; which by turns boasts as its 

 oracles Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Leibnitz, and so many others 

 whose doctrines and methods seem to have nothing in common? In a 

 word, what is a science, not only whose existence, but whose possibility 

 is questioned?" 



But Ampere bespoke in advance all my reserve when he exclaimed, 

 These last have only uttered what is eminently just and true, when iu 

 comparing the true metaphysicians of the schools of Kant and Schel- 

 iiug with the followers of Eeid jind Dugald Stewart, they said, the last 

 are to the first what good cooks are to chemists. 



I will leave to the most competent judges of future times to assign to 

 Ami;)ere a place amongst i)sychologists. Nevertheless, I may now affirm 

 that the wonderful j^owers of penetration and the rare faculty of reach-- 



