Dr. Bowditch, President of the American Academy. — lvii 
awarding of justice to different writers, whose labors had been 
made to contribute to the perfecting of the Mécanique Céleste, but 
who are not referred to in that work; so that La Place appears 
himself to be the author of discoveries, which belong to others. His 
contemporaries in France complained, that he was not willing to be 
just either to them, or to his predecessors; that his great fault was, 
his not citing the authors to whom he was indebted ; and _ that 
he permitted the discoveries of others to appear to the world as 
his own. 
It is not for us to determine how far these complaints of his coun- 
trymen were well-founded; in such cases the motive, of which we 
have not here the means of judging, is essential in estimating the 
justness of the charge. In point of fact, however, Dr. Bowditch 
has, in his Commentary, traced to their proper authors various 
processes and formulas, which, in the text, are not referred to their 
original sources. 
Among the many eminent men, whose claims Dr. Bowditch 
has been careful to bring distinctly into view, the most conspicuous 
is the illustrious Lagrange ; who, from his extraordinary mathemati- 
cal powers, was at sixteen years of age made professor of mathe- 
matics in the Royal School of Artillery at Turin, in which every one 
of his pupils was older than himself.* This great man’s talents 
and character, on the whole, appear to have commanded more of 
Dr. Bowditch’s profound respect and admiration, than those of any 
other individual, whose works were the subject of his studies. Of 
his eminent talents he remarks, that, “ upon the death of Euler, 
Lagrange remained, undisputedly, the greatest mathematician then 
* Delambre, Notice sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de M. Lagrange ; Mém. de 
VInstitut, Tom, XIII. 2° Série, p. xxxiv. 
8 
