ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF PARIS. 345 



and lie did me tlie honor of adopting me as their interpreter in this pLice." But 

 thia merit — and it is a great one — of having taught science to speak tlie common 

 language, is the most genei-ally known of Fontenelle's merits, and I restrict 

 myself here to a mere mention of it. 



Fontenelle, as has been seen, was nominated secretary of the Academy of 

 Sciences in 1G97 ; in 1G99 the Academy was remodelled, receiving, among other 

 ordinances, the following: "The secretary shall be exact in collecting in sub- 

 stance all that shall have been proposed, agitated, examined and resolved in 

 this company, entering it on his register with a refei-ence to each day of assem- 

 bling, and he shall also insert therein the treatises which shall have been read; 

 and at close of December of each year he shall give to the public an 

 abstract of his registers, or an analytical history of the most remarkable acts 

 and proceedings of the Academy." 



Fontenelle addressed himself at once to the work, and in 1702 a])peared the 

 first volume of his great history. He excuses himself in the first lines for ita 

 retarded appearance : "According to the ordinance imposed by the Kin"- on the 

 Academy at the beginning of the year 1G99, this history ought to have appeared 

 at the end of that year. But as the entire Academy was remodelled by thcat 

 ordinance, it required some time to communicate to the whole a first movement, 

 which it will henceforward be easy to maintain." — 'Preface o/'1699. 



This, in effect, Avas the case. From 1702 each year yielded its volume, 

 containing, in part, the Memoirs of academicians, and, in part, the History of 



Uie Academy, by Fontenelle. The latter is composed of two portions the 



general history of the Academy, of its labors, of its ideas, of the sciences with 

 which it was occupied ; and the history, the Eloge of individual academicians. 



We will first consider the general history. In this Fontenelle combined an 

 ahridgment of everything remarkable which had been said or done in the 

 Academy during the year, with an analysis of the printed memoirs, the whole 

 discussed and illustrated, and composed, moreover, in a style of such admirable 

 cleai'ness as to recall at once the line of Voltaire : 



"The ignorant understood, the learned admired liim." 



"The design," says Fontenelle, "has been that the history should, on all 

 subjects, whether common to it and the memoirs, or peculiar to the former, be 

 adapted to the capacity of those who have but a moderate tincture of mathe- 

 matics and physics." He goes on to say, " it has been considered that, with 

 a view as well to profound savants as to those who are not such, it would be 

 best to present, under two different forms, the materials which compose this 

 collection ; that the labors of the Academy Avould thence become better known, 

 and the taste of the sciences be more widely diffused." He adds, in fine. " Care 

 has been taken to intersperse in the history illustrations suited to facilitate the 

 reading of the memoirs, and some of these Avill undoubtedly be more intcllio-ible 

 to the greater part of readers, if associated with that portion of the history Avhifeh 

 corresponds to them." Still another phrase is worthy of remark, as showino- us 

 that Fontenelle well understood the kind of service which he rendered to his 

 colleagues. He observes, in his Eloge of the geometer Parent, who was reproached 

 for the obscurity of his writings : " I cannot help recording it to his honor, that, 

 in a letter written to his warmest friend two days before his deatli, he thanks 

 me for having, as he said, made him intelligible. This Avas frankly conceding 

 the fault which Avas imputed to him, and carrying very far his gratitude for a 

 slight service Avhich I OAVcd him." 



In reference to the savants whose history he has Avritten, Fontenelle lias tAvo 

 merits : that of having cleared up Avhat is obscure, of having generalized Avhat 

 is technical in the Avritings of each ; and that of having always employed av hat each 

 has bequeathed us that is most important and most durable as the vehicle of 

 his eulogy. He praises by means of facts Avhich define the character. The 



