inO EULOGY ON AMPERE. 



istry. '' No longer haviug," lie said, " the courage to fix his thoughts on 

 that tedious subject." 



I will say uo more, gentlemeu, as I would be afraid by dwelling longer 

 on the harm done to j)hysics by psychology, of exciting against the lat- 

 ter too violent an opposition. 



Among the writers conspicuous in literary history for their invaluable 

 aud indefatigable zeal, we shall fiud some profoundly pious, some in- 

 different, and others skeptical. Those, on the contrary, who all their 

 lives have been harassed by internal religious struggles, have rarely suc- 

 ceeded in accomplishing works of great magnitude. Ampere belonged 

 much more than we had suspected to the last class of savants. 



Madame Ampere had early begun to instil into the heart of her son 

 the pious sentiments animating her own. A diligent study of the Bible 

 and the fathers of the church was the unfailing expedient of the young 

 geometer when his faith was wavering. Later in life this talisman lost 

 somewhat of its early efficacy, a fact revealed to me by some scraps of 

 manuscript, for during his life Ampere never allowed me to perceive the 

 cruel doubts which from time to time disturbed his mind. In glancing 

 over to-day his letters to the friend whom he had selected as the confi- 

 dant of all his mental struggles, the reader is surprised to find that he 

 has really before him an account of the excessive tortures experienced 

 by the author of the Frovincials. "If this were true, however," he 

 wrote (m the 2d of June, 1815, "miserable creature that I am. * * * 

 Former views have not the power to make me believe ; but they still 

 have the power to strike terror into my soul. If I had only preserved 

 them intact, I would not now be phinged into this gulf." 



By comparing dates, it is evident to me that these vicissitudes of feeling 

 were not unconnected with the political revolutions of France, or with 

 family afflictions. How readily it can be believed that the tears filling 

 the unhappy eyes do not alone change the appearance of the external 

 world ! 



In moments of religious excitement there was no literary sacrifice 

 Ampere would not have considered light. Whde at the central school 

 of Bourg, the young professor composed a treatise on tJie future of 

 chemistry. In it were some bold predictions, which at the time did not 

 alarm his conscience. The work was scarcely published, however, when 

 various circumstances threw Ampere into an extraordinary mystical 

 exultation. From that moment he fancied himself in the highest degree 

 culpable for having attemi^ted to unveil prematurely a multitude of 

 secrets that future ages bore and still bear in their bosom 5 and seeing 

 in his work only the suggestions of Satan, he committed it to the flames. 

 The illustrious academicau has since deeply deplored this loss in common 

 with all interested in the progress of science aud the glory of the coun- 

 try. Eeligious doubts were not the only ones w^hich perplexed Ampere. 

 Doubt, whatever the object, always disturbed his mind in the same 

 degree. "Doubt," he wrote to a Lyonnese friend, "is the greatest 



