XXXViii Mr. Pickering’s Eulogy on 
in which corpuscular attraction has been submitted to an accurate 
analysis. He then adds, that he shall now lay before mathemati- 
cians another case, which is still more remarkable, from the variety 
and singularity of the phenomena depending upon it, and from its 
being susceptible of an equally accurate analysis; the case of capil- 
lary attraction, a singularly curious and interesting subject, the 
theory of which he first published in the year 1806. The effects 
of the refractive power, he observes, correspond to dynamics and 
the theory of projectiles ; those of capillary attraction correspond 
to hydrostatics and the equilibrium of fluids, which are elevated or 
depressed, according to certain laws. A minute and profound in- 
vestigation of these laws, concludes this second part of the work ; 
which completes the author’s system. 
It will not be uninteresting to pause here a moment, and in im- 
agination place ourselves at a height, from which the vast subject 
of La Place’s labors ought to be surveyed. If, then, we concen- 
trate our attention upon it, as an entire object, we perceive the 
powerful intellect of the author, grasping the general phenomena of 
the matter of the universe, from the whole mass down to the minute 
and invisible particles, which are the ultimate component parts of 
that mass; beginning with the laws of equilibrium and motion, gen- 
erally, as applicable to all matter, solid and fluid ; then proceeding, 
step by step, to the subdivisions, or parts of the whole, considered 
as systems of bodies; and, next, to the individual bodies that are 
members of those systems; then, considering the laws of gravita- 
tion, and the mutual attraction and perturbations of the heavenly 
bodies ; next, our own solar system, its planets, satellites, and 
comets ; and, from the consideration of these, the author is led to 
the attraction of bodies of a particular character, that is, those which 
are homogeneous and of a spheroidal form, of which the Earth is 
an example, and is particularly discussed; and, connected with 
