340 ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF PARIS. 



sciences, but a grand and comprelicnsive or universal academy. "M. Colbert," 

 says Fontenelle, "at first conceived the project of an academy composed of all 

 who were highly skUled in every department of letters. Historians, gramma- 

 rians, mathematicians, philosophers, poets, orators, were equally to enter into 

 this great body, in which all, even the most opposite talents, were to be united 

 and reconciled. The Bibliothcque da Roi was destined to be their common 

 place of meetmg. The professors of history were to assemble there on Mondays 

 and Thuisdays; the votaries of the belles-lettres, Tuesdays and Fridays; the 

 mathematicians and physicists, Wednesdays and Satin-days. Thus no day of 

 the week was to remain unemployed; and that there might be something in 

 common which should connect these difierent companies, there was to be the 

 first Thursday of every month a general assembly of all, in which the secreta- 

 ries were to report the judgments and decisions of their respective assemblies, 

 and every one might ask a solution of his ditiiculties; for on what subject would 

 not these estates general of literature have been ready to answer 1 If, however, 

 the difficulties proved too considerable to be at once resolved, they were to be 

 committed to writing and answered in the same manner, and all the decisions 

 were to have been considered as issuing from the entire academy." 



This project was not carried into execution; the plan of distinct academies 

 was adhered to ; doubtless because it was perceived that, even for academies, 

 the first law of labor is division. G. Cuvier calls the modern era of the sciences. 

 in oiher words their grand era, the era of the division of lahor. Our present 

 Institute has resolved the problem which Colbert proposed to himself — all the 

 academies united by a common bond of emulation and fame, and each, as regards 

 its special labors, independent and free. 



To the idea of uniting everythiug, succeeded that of too thorough a sepa- 

 ration. It was deliberated whether geometricians and physicists should form 

 distinct sociteties, or be combined in one. Fortunately, they were combined in 

 one. The spirit of geometry is the ever present, though often secret, guide 

 of all our exact sciences. 



The rules of the Academy date from the remodelling in 1699. "Till then," 

 says Fontenelle, " the love of the sciences constituted almost alone its whole 

 laAV." In 1699 positive and written laws were prescribed, all dictated by a 

 sound discretion. 



The whole number of academicians was seventy — ten lionoraries, twenty pe»- 

 sionaries, twenty associates, and twenty eleves. The class of lionoraries was 

 not distributed into sections. That of pensionaries was composed of three 

 geometers, three astronomers, three mechanicians, three anatomists, three chem- 

 ists, three botanists, a secretary and a treasurer. Of the twenty associates, 

 twelve were French ; two geometers, two astronomers, two mechanicians, two 

 anatomists, two chemists, and two botanists. The others were foreigners, and 

 had no designated sections. It was in this list of the eight earliest foreign as- 

 sociates of the Academy that might have been seen, nearly at the same time, 

 the names of Leibnitz, Newton, the two Bernouillis, Iluysch, and the Czar 

 Peter. Of the eleves, each cultivated the science of the pensionary Avho had 

 chot^en him, for each of these last selected his own elcve ; but, in 1716, the 

 title of elcve was suppressed ;* " a title," says Fontenelle, " which they have 

 had the delicacy to abolish, though no one disdained it." In speaking of tho 

 anatomist Tauvey, whom he himself had chosen as eleve, Fontenelle grace- 

 fully says : " I believe that I could make no better present to the company 

 tJiau of M. Tauvey; and though my nomination was not honorable enough for 



* In the place of the twenty r.leves. twelve adjoints were created, who had a deliberative 

 voice in n;atters of science, as had also tho associates. This class of twelve adjoints was com- 

 posed, like that of the associates, of two geometers and the same number of astronomers, 

 mechanicians, anatomists, chemists, and botanists. 



